on the crypto
Le Philippines represent an ecosystem that is quite favorable for cryptocurrencies, as witnessed by data issued during the 2018 by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the central bank of the country, according to which the conversion from digital currencies into the local one was attested at that time over the 36 million per month. Data that the BSP has derived from the base made available by virtual currency exchanges (VC) Rebittance, Inc. and Betur, Inc. also known as Coins.ph, the first two exchanges accredited in the country, which was then followed by the birth of Bloom Solutions.
To make the situation even more promising, the decision taken by the Union bank of philippines, relating to the launch of his first ATM for cryptocurrency, Automatic Teller Machine, thanks to which bank users will be able to withdraw or pay their tokens. A decision that has practically started testing ATMs in the Asian country, being the first to do so in the Philippines.
The central bank is mobilizing for security
The same central bank in Manila over the last few weeks has decided to intensify its surveillance activity on the digital economy, with the clear intention of removing it from the aims of the large criminal and terrorist groups that could use Blockchain technology in order to finance their own illegal activities.
An intent demonstrated by the warning issued by Benjamin Diokno, director of the BSP, with which the intention to carefully study the use of digital assets within the country was confirmed enhance its undoubted potential and to ensure that they cannot become an improper tool in the hands of criminal gangs. Diokno himself, however, wanted to make his statement even more articulated by recognizing that the Blockchain and certain implementations of distributed ledgers can prove extremely useful in order to facilitate payments and peer-to-peer transactions, thus going to be configured as a interesting alternative tool to traditional finance.
The February provisions
The declarations of Diokno must also be related to regulations issued in February by the Philippine government, which have implemented the regulatory framework with a series of rules that regulate the conversion of fiat currency into digital currencies, imposing a series of requirements for risk management which have the task of eliminating any risk that cryptocurrencies may turn out to be a Trojan horse in the country for money laundering.
The deputy governor of BSP Chuchi G. Fonacier had in turn declared in December how the central bank of Manila is in the process of collaboration with the regulatory authority of the Philippine market, the Securities and Exchange Commission, in order to finally arrive at the drafting of a unified regulation on the digital currencies used as an investment.
The attitude of the government
In addition to the decisions of the banking system, in order to understand the direction in which the Philippines is heading, it is also necessary to take a look at the attitude of the local government and, in particular, the change of course made in the past year. After the initial distrust of virtual uniforms, in fact, the country's political authorities decided to change the direction of travel held until then, in particular by allowing the birth of a sort of Asian Silicon Valley within national borders.
The region chosen for this experiment was the Special Economic Zone of Cagayan and Freeport, administered by the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority, which is located within the Municipality of Santa Ana and includes the Escape Islands, Barit, and Mabbag. The 54 thousand hectares of land in question have been identified as the ideal place to host an entirely self-sufficient industrial, commercial, financial, tourist and recreational center. Intention confirmed by Raul Lambino, secretary of the area during a Fintech summit held at Bonifacio Global City during which the desire to make the area a real point of reference for Blockchain, digital currency and fintech was reaffirmed with extreme force.
The resulting plan includes in particular the creation of a sort of technological garden in the Cagayan valley, to which the 21 offshore companies engaged in the sectors in question will have to contribute in order to start activities on the territory such as to entail the investment of no less than $ 40 million by the end of 2020. A names like Changwei International Co., Ltd., State Trust Union Capital Holdings and Xin Peng Group, Chinese companies based in Hong Kong, were then joined by 10 exchanges which opened their offices in the area, just for make operations as easy as possible.
