Binance Philippines, Blockshoals set to roll out services in coming months

Binance Philippines, in partnership with local fintech firm Blockshoals Technologies Inc., is looking to roll out services in the Philippines in the next couple of months, as part of the testing under the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Regulatory Sandbox Framework.

According to Binance Philippines general manager Jen Bilango, the company plans to roll out its services soon, as it is now in talks with a virtual asset service provider (VASP) to process all Philippine peso onboarding and offboarding operations.

“In the next coming weeks and months, there will be a lot of things that they can expect from Binance and Blackshoals. Very exciting times ahead,” she told reporters in a briefing in Pasay City.

“I think five years from now, I want to see everyone not just looking at Binance Philippines as just a trading platform. We want it to every aspect of your financial life by working, again, with regulations,” she added.

To recall, Binance previously faced regulatory scrutiny, as it was not authorized to sell or offer securities.

The company is now set to provide its global technology, operational expertise, and experience on digital assets to the Philippine market through a partnership with Blackshoals, which obtained SEC approval to undergo testing as a Crypto Asset Intermediary (CAI) under a two-year sandbox phase.

“The products that we’ll use, again, (we will) work with the SEC to ensure that almost all of the products of Binance globally will be offered in the Philippines,” Blackshoals legal advisor Atty. Marie Antonette Quiogue said.

“We are actually in pre-phase. That’s how we define it. Phase one starts once we have our rails, wherein we will have more than a virtual asset service provider that is regulated by the BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) and Filipino users are able to covert fiat to crypto. That will be phase one,” she added.

Under the partnership, Blackshoals — led by businessman Anthony Te — will hold primary responsibility for local customer due diligence (CDD) and know-your-customer (KYC) verification. It will also have to comply with its obligations as a covered person under the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA).

With the sandbox testing plan, Binance Philippines and Blockshoals will be under direct supervision of the SEC, giving regulators access to observe live mechanics, evaluate risk management controls, and collect data to inform permanent policy standards.

“The reason why we’ve chosen this two-year pathway to go into a sandbox is because it slows things down enough and provides enough data visibility to the regulator to make constant intuitive decisions on which products are suitable for the market in general,” Binance Asia Pacific head SB Seker said.

Both parties have been given a 90-day integration phase to focus on system synchronization, integrating VASP fiat rails, and validating automated anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) reporting workflows. —KG, GMA News