Philippine Bitcoin Exchanges May Face New Regulations

Rage Comment : Earlier this year, the Bangladesh Central Bank suffered a cyber attack, with hackers invading the institutional conduit connected to the SWIFT network, resulting in the theft of $81 million. This also alerted the Philippine Central Bank, which decided to expand its supervision of the country's financial system and form new Bitcoin service rules. The central bank also set up a special working group to address the shortcomings of the current cybersecurity policy, so as to better safeguard the interests of the central bank and Bitcoin transactions.

Translation: Nicole

Following the hack of international money transfer system SWIFT, the Philippines’ central bank has decided to expand its oversight of the country’s financial system — a move that could ultimately lead to new rules for domestic bitcoin services.

The Philippines’ central bank is considering whether to impose additional regulations on Philippine money exchanges, which allow bitcoin exchanges to convert cash into digital currencies, according to Reuters.

At an event hosted by the central bank, Nestor Espenilla, deputy governor of the banking regulator, said discussions were ongoing.

Nestor Espenilla

Espenilla says:

“Whether or not now is the right time to impose strict regulations on digital currency operators, this is what we have been wanting to do. Now we consider these digital currency operators to be the same as remittance companies.”

Earlier this year, Bangladesh Central Bank suffered a cyber attack in which hackers broke into institutional conduits connected to the SWIFT network, resulting in the theft of $81 million. The network was hacked due to weaknesses in the central bank’s cybersecurity measures.

The incident has been criticized and it also makes us reflect on the reasons why these institutions hacked into SWIFT. Espenilla said that officials of the Philippine central bank have formed a new working group to address the potential shortcomings of the current cybersecurity policy.

In March, Espenilla said any bank at fault in the February hack would face penalties, according to Bloomberg.