227 Chinese nationals were arrested in Pasig City, Philippines, on suspicion of running a crypto investment scam targetting would be investor back in China. This was according to local media, The Inquirer. The 227 Chinese nationals all had Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA) visa, which meant that they were only permitted to work within the special economic zone in Cagayan. The raid was reportedly conducted on Grapefruit which is a service provider of Golden Millenial Quickpay, an offshore cryptocurrency company licensed in the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA). CEZA’s license does not permit for entities to provide services onshore, which…

The Philippines is anticipated to launch a standardised QR code for payments by September, according to a report by Philstar. The plan to standardise QR payments in Philippines was first announced by the late BSP Governor Nestor A. Espenilla, Jr in July last year. With QR payments being increasingly popular especially within the ASEAN region, Philippines follows in the footsteps of countries like Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia in adopting a standardised QR payment to drive interoperability between e-wallet providers. The Chairman of Fintech Alliance.Ph, Lito Villanueva recently called for ASEAN regulators to standardise payment QR codes across the region, citing…

The ASEAN must standardize quick-response (QR) codes for digital payments platforms to facilitate and simplify regional trade. Lito Villanueva, Chief Innovation and Inclusion Officer at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) and chairman of FinTech Alliance.ph, said that the immediate standardization of QR codes for payments within the ASEAN is a critical positive development in realizing a common aspiration towards an ASEAN Economic Community. “These, of course, must be in collaboration with the ASEAN Bankers Association, country regulators, ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ASEAN BAC) and the FinTech country organizations, we can then make this a reality sooner than later,” Villanueva stated.…

The Overseas Filipino Bank (OFBank), a state-owned bank and a subsidiary of Land Bank of the Philippines, is planning to become a fully branchless, digital lender by mid-2020. Currently pending approval from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the country’s central bank, the OFBank will provide online lending, investments, insurance, bills payment and other financial services to overseas Filipinos, reports the Manila Bulletin. Land Bank president and CEO Cecilia C. Borromeo said she expects to “have that digital bank up and running by June 2020.” Borromeo said the IT system of Landbank will be tweaked to serve as the primary…

CIMB Bank Philippines announced that it has garnered 500,000 customers, approximately six months after opening its doors for business in the Philippines. The milestone was reached anchored on a strong proposition of co-creation and partnership between CIMB Bank and GCash, the leading payments platform in the Philippines with over 5 million downloads. The all-digital, mobile-first CIMB Bank PH was launched in early 2019 with a goal of bringing a unique and differentiated banking proposition to Filipinos. CIMB Bank PH had forged a partnership with GCash, to allow GCash’s customers direct, paperless and seamless access to savings account services, a product…

The Philippines government is pushing for innovation and entrepreneurship, introducing new regulations and programs to support young companies, and leading numerous projects to bring convenient e-government public services to the masses. The Philippines Innovation Act The Philippines’ president, Rodrigo Duterte, has signed a new law aimed at boosting innovation to help “promote growth and national competitiveness of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs),” according to a report by the SunStar Philippines. Signed on April 17, the Republic Act 11293, or the Philippine Innovation Act, aims to “remove obstacles to innovation by suppressing bureaucratic hurdles” and “encourage entrepreneurial attitude in order…

UnionBank of the Philippines recently became the first Philippine bank to successfully pilot blockchain-based remittance from Singapore to the Philippines. This was done in partnership with OCBC Bank, Singapore, using the Adhara liquidity management and international payments platform. Amid a continued push for financial inclusion for all Filipinos as aligned with the Philippine government’s mandate, UnionBank on June 27 used blockchain-based tokenized fiat to successfully remit from OCBC Bank in Singapore to an account holder at Cantilan Bank, a rural bank in Surigao Del Sur. This was made possible by combining the features of both the Adhara platform and UnionBank-UBX’s…

Philippines’ 7-Eleven is eyeing to deploy 300 ATMs in Metro Manila by next year. In doing so they will be teaming up with Japan’s Seven Bank, who is currently operating a network of 18,000 ATMs across 7-Eleven’s in Japan through a series of partnership with the local banks there. According to their announcement Philippines is the first country that Seven Bank’s services is made available outside of Japan, it is reported that they are currently in talks a number of banks in Philippines. The pilot will start with the initial 300 ATMs and then both parties will evaluate the feasibility…

OneConnect announced today, their partnership with Union Bank’s wholly-owned fintech subsidiary UBX to build what they claim to be the country’s first blockchain enabled platform geared towards meeting the banking needs of MSMEs in the Philippines. According to their press release, the blockchain enabled platform will be operational by 2019 and will be made more widely available by 2020. The platform’s supply chain financing will record crucial data on the blockchain to make it tamper-proof and traceable. Aside from supply chain financing, the parties involved stated that the platform also covers a wide range of business finance needs such as…

Philippines’ central bank reported that e-wallet penetration is growing faster in the Philippines and has surpassed credit card numbers. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) released this information in a financial inclusion dashboard, which states that e-money accounts rose by 22% to 33 million in 2018. This is composed of five million active e-wallets and 28 million prepaid cards linked to e-money, reported NewsBytes Philippines. Meanwhile, credit cards have only penetrated 9% of the population. The numbers seems to support the narrative that digital technologies like e-wallets can help the population access basic financial services. Philippines’ central bank seem to recognize that…

Philippines’ regulator, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has released its rules and regulations on crowdfunding as its way of providing certainty in the market so that startups and SMEs can access funding, while the public is given more investment options. In the Philippines, Section 8 of the Securities Regulation Code (SRC) provides that securities shall not be sold or offered for sale or distribution within the Philippines, without a registration statement duly filed with and approved by the Commission. However, to promote access to finance,  the new rules provides an exemption from registration of crowdfunding securities as long as everyone…

Soon, students and employees in the University of the Philippines (UP) will say goodbye to the typical barcoded ID cards and instead be given ID cards with radio frequency identification (RFID)/near-field communication (NFC) capabilities. The University has signed a memorandum of agreement with PayMaya, a prepaid virtual card platform that aims to serve Filipinos without access to credit cards on the 20th of June. The cards will soon be usable in any accompanying facilities that require a UP ID card, but will also double as a cashless payment mechanism inside the university. A Prepaid Virtual Credit Card According to University…

With more than 5 million downloads from Google Play, GCash is not only one of the Philippines most popular mobile banking apps, it is also one of the cheapest banking services providers, requiring no minimum maintaining balance compared to other leading banks and providers, according to an analysis by MyManila.net. GCash is a mobile money service regulated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the central bank of the Philippines, that lets users buy, load, purchase items, send and receive money, pay bill, and more, on any network in the country (not just Globe’s). GCash also offers the option to…

Financial technology continues to bring exciting times ahead in the Philippines with the ever-growing emergence of new fintech players that aim to cater to 69 per cent of its adult population that are still unbanked. A report released earlier this year suggests that the Filipino fintech sector may soon be entering “a new phase of development” driven by the large, mobile-savvy and increasingly well-off generation of Filipinos who will increasingly be demanding digital financial services. The following 15 companies are some of the most exciting new fintech ventures to keep a close eye on this year: Cropital Cropital helps farmers…

Philippines Digital Asset Exchange (PDAX), a locally based cryptocurrency exchange platform recently received an undisclosed sum of funding from BitMEX Ventures. This news follows a recent investment by Consensys into PDAX. According to BitMEX co-founder and CEO Arthur Hayes, they see a substantial amount of trading volume from users in the Philippines. “We are confident in the transformative potential of cryptocurrency and PDAX’s ability to widen access to the Philippines market and provide the tools to learn more about financial markets,” Hayes said, noting BitMEX targets to further empower traders with a more improved and affordable Bitcoin transfer platform. Founded…

Members of the FinTech Alliance.ph have agreed to adopt a code of conduct for responsible online lending. This was after 48 online lenders have been cited for alleged unethical collection practices leading to data privacy violation. Over 400 harassment complaints from customers were reported to the National Privacy Commission. According to reports, operators of online lending applications that allegedly misused the borrower’s information, including the disclosure of unpaid balances to other people. Both the NPC and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating the matter. “The public may have the wrong sweeping generalization that all online lenders are evil. The…

Philippines’ UnionBank has expressed their intention to invest around $US 9.6 Million into incubating or buying technology ventures where financial services could be wired into, and they’ll be refreshing the fund every year, according to Inquirer.net, UnionBank is among Philippines’ largest banking institutions and is currently undertaking a future-proofing exercise on its core banking operations. Beyond that, its new fintech arm will also be looking into other monetisation avenues outside of traditional banking. The investments will be made via its fintech/innovation arm, UBX Philippines Corp. The new venture will house UnionBank’s technology initiatives and experimentation, as well as ecosystem platform…

Maria Health, a Filipino aggregator for health insurance, has secured an undisclosed amount of seed funding from the tryb group, with participation from Gobi Ventures, Wavemaker, Hustle Fund and Grand Metro Holdings. Maria Health will use the additional funding to accelerate their scaling efforts in the Philippines, seeing themselves as a first-mover in the market and pushing hard to maintain their advantage. Spending on health expenditures in the Philippines has been on a gradual incline over the years, and according to the Philipine Statistics Authority, total health expenditures grew by 8% percent between 2016 and 2017. Households spent the highest in…

The song and dance for incumbents in Philippines right now is “future-proofing”. Joining the trend of entrenched establishments disrupting themselves before they are disrupted, the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) appoints Lito Villanueva as Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation and Inclusion Officer effective May 1, 2019. Villanueva is no small fry, known to be a digital finance expert and thought leader across Southeast Asia. He is recognised for his pioneering work, including “sachet banking” initiative with five banks, in which sari-sari stores can serve as cash agents for banking transactions to cater to unbanked and underserved Filipinos. He was the first…

The Ayala Corporation, Philippines’ oldest conglomerate, is raising a new venture capital fund worth US$150 million, dedicated towards investing into early stage startups engaged in e-commerce, as well as what the company deems as disruptive technologies; like fintech, healthtech, artificial intelligence, among others. The fund will be looking into investments on a global level. The goal here is to complement the group’s traditional brick-and-mortar operations, with the goal of future-proofing their operations. Pegged to be one of the biggest VC funds in the Philippines, the money will be raised through Ayala’s subsidiaries, Bank of Philippine Islands, Globe Telecom, AC Energy, Ayala…