The Union Bank of the Philippines has become the first commercial bank in the country to be part of the global R3 Sandbox for Digital Currencies.
The sandbox brings together commercial banks, central banks, payment providers and exchanges to collaborate with one another in a ‘ready-made payments ecosystem’ to evaluate Central Bank Digital Currencies’ (CBDC) use cases, learn, transact, and test roll-out strategies and designs.
Following UnionBank’s launch of PHX, its stablecoin, in 2019, the bank is keen to see how participation in the sandbox aligns with its vision, and how it will result in the creation of a new infrastructure for digital currencies.
Participants including UnionBank can experiment with different models, see the flow of funds and how this operates in a controlled environment, develop CBDCs frameworks and best practices.
UnionBank said that it will benefit from the sandbox’s advancements in interoperability and cross border functionalities, including emerging features such as dynamic liquidity management.
R3’s Sandbox for Digital Currencies is built on Corda, a permissioned peer-to-peer distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform that enables the building of applications that foster and deliver digital trust between parties in regulated markets.
Catherine Anne P. Bautista-Casas, First Vice President and Head of the Blockchain Centre of Excellence, Digital Assets and API Marketplace Group at Union Bank of the Philippines said,
“UnionBank will leverage R3’s Digital Currency Sandbox to explore, manage and deploy digital currency pilots and applications.
Being true to our commitment of ‘tech-ing up the Philippines’, we are joining the sandbox so that we, as a commercial bank, are prepared to support the future financial ecosystem of the Philippines as blockchain adoption further increases.”
Cathy Minter, Chief Revenue Officer at R3 said,
“We are pleased to welcome UnionBank as the first commercial bank in the Philippines to join R3 Sandbox for Digital Currencies.
We are looking forward to supporting and journeying alongside UnionBank in their plans to test and deploy digital currencies that enable great security in payment settlements in the country.”
