Binance is looking to enter the Philippine market through local partners. Regulators have made clear it won’t be easy.
The country’s central bank said that neither the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange nor its local partner Brock-Scholes Technologies hold the necessary licenses to operate as a virtual asset service provider (VASP) in the country, Bitpinus Media reported.
The license, issued by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, is essential for facilitating cryptocurrency payments and trading rails and is separate from the approval granted by the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
CoinDesk has reached out to Binance for comment.
Binance has previously operated in the country. But in 2023, the SEC noted that it was operating without a license. The following year, it ordered internet service providers and app stores to block the exchange.
Binance announced last month that it is working with local fintech firm Brock Shoals, which received its first SEC approval in November under the regulator’s sandbox framework. The sandbox, called StratBox (Strategic Sandbox), is a controlled and supervised environment for fintech and crypto companies to test financial services.
According to BitPinas, the central bank has made it clear that participation in the sandbox is not a substitute for a central bank license and that companies seeking to operate in the country will need to comply with both frameworks independently.
The report also states that the SEC revised the wording of the sandbox transaction to describe Binance as a global crypto asset service provider, rather than the narrower designation Global VASP. The revised terms also require BlockShoals to integrate its system with a licensed domestic VASP within 90 days before it can begin onboarding users through the Binance infrastructure.
Binance is back on your doorstep. Whether it will participate, and on whose terms, remains to be seen.
