The Philippines’ central bank wants to hit pause on new payment operator registrations for a full year — and crypto firms are being lumped into the same risk bucket as gambling and adult businesses. The draft rules, published this week, could reshape how millions of Filipinos move money to and from crypto platforms.
By Maria Rodriguez | September 7, 2026
The Hook: A 12-Month Freeze on the Plumbing of Digital Money
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the country’s central bank, has proposed a draft circular that would suspend the acceptance and processing of new applications from operators of payment systems (OPS) for 12 months. In plain terms: if your company wants to become a new payment middleman in the Philippines, the door is closing for a year while the regulator rethinks its entire licensing framework.
The BSP said the freeze would allow a “holistic review” of its taxonomy and licensing framework — regulator-speak for “we need to figure out what all these new payment businesses actually do before we license more of them.” Applications submitted before the suspension could still be evaluated, but the BSP would neither approve nor deny any of them until the pause ends. Entities would also be barred from launching activities that require OPS registration unless the regulator explicitly authorizes them.
What the Draft Actually Says About Crypto
The crypto-specific part is where it gets pointed. The proposal would require BSP-supervised institutions offering merchant acquisition services — the companies that connect shops and online platforms to the banking system — to handle regulated virtual asset service providers (VASPs) only through direct merchant arrangements. Those relationships would face:
- Enhanced due diligence and monitoring — deeper background checks and continuous oversight of the relationship.
- Transaction and settlement limits — caps on how much money can move per transaction and per settlement cycle.
- Other risk-based controls — measures tailored to how risky the arrangement is judged to be.
The requirement covers virtual asset firms that must be licensed, registered or authorized by the BSP, the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission, or another authority. And here is the detail that stings for the crypto industry: in the draft, VASPs are listed alongside gambling businesses, gaming providers, adult-oriented businesses and money service businesses. The central bank is treating crypto payment channels with the same caution it applies to casinos.
The Core Conflict: Consumer Protection vs. Access
Why is the BSP doing this now? The Philippines is one of the world’s most crypto-active populations, and payment rails are the bridge between fiat bank accounts and digital assets. When that bridge is loosely supervised, it can be used for scams, money laundering and unlicensed gambling flows. Tightening the screws on how VASPs connect to the formal payment system is a classic consumer-protection move.
The cost is friction. Payment operators that serve crypto businesses will face more compliance overhead, and some of that cost typically gets passed on to users through higher fees or stricter onboarding. New payment startups — including crypto-friendly ones — lose a year of market access. The BSP is accepting public feedback, and the draft would take effect 15 days after publication if finalized. Cointelegraph said it reached out to the BSP for comment but had not received a response before publication.
This does not land in a vacuum. The Philippine SEC has recently flagged platforms including dYdX and six other crypto services as unauthorized. Regulators across the archipelago are clearly coordinating a broader tightening.
Market Implications: What It Means for Investors and Users
If you hold crypto on a Philippine platform, the practical risks are procedural rather than existential. Licensed exchanges and VASPs are not being shut down — the rules target the payment plumbing around them. Still, expect stricter identity checks, possible limits on how much you can move per transaction, and longer processing times as payment providers comply.
For the broader market, the Philippines matters because it is a template. Emerging markets with heavy crypto adoption are watching how peers balance innovation against capital controls and fraud. A 12-month registration freeze paired with casino-tier scrutiny of VASPs sends a message: the era of light-touch payment integration is ending, and crypto firms that want bank connectivity will have to accept bank-grade supervision.
The Verdict: Read the Signals, Not Just the Headline
The BSP’s proposal is not a ban on crypto, and treating it as one would misread it. It is a regulator methodically walling off the payments system from risks it does not yet fully understand — while keeping the door open for licensed players who accept enhanced oversight. If you operate or invest in Philippine crypto infrastructure, the watch-items are simple: whether the freeze is finalized as drafted, how strict the transaction limits end up, and whether other Southeast Asian regulators copy the playbook.
For everyday users, nothing changes yet — this is a draft. But the direction of travel is unmistakable: more documentation, more limits, more scrutiny. The projects that survive will be the ones that treat compliance as a feature, not a fight.
The cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
12 month freeze on new OPS applications while they rethink the whole framework. and they wonder why startups just incorporate in singapore instead
my cousin’s remittance startup did exactly the singapore move in march. BSP lost the jobs and the money still moves, just not through manila
putting crypto remittances in the same risk bucket as casinos tells you everything about how the BSP sees this. OFW money moves faster on chain than through their licensed pipelines, thats the actual complaint
as an OFW family we saved real money per transfer switching to usdt. freeze all the licenses you want, that math doesnt stop
same here. we cut our remittance fees from 6 percent to under 2 using usdt rails. bsp can freeze licenses all they want, the OFW whatsapp groups already moved on
we ran the same math for our family in cebu. freezing new ops licenses does not touch existing rails anyway, the usdt path keeps working
existing rails keep working so this freeze mostly punishes the startups that were about to apply. incumbents get a free year of zero competition, nice deal for them
under 2 percent fees vs 6, that gap pays school fees back home. no license freeze changes that arithmetic
putting VASPs in the same risk bucket as casinos and adult sites is insulting. a 12 month freeze just kills the compliant players, P2P wont even blink
this. BSP basically pushing remittances back to whatsapp groups and calling it consumer protection
and those whatsapp groups are the exact unregulated outcome the risk bucket claims to prevent. freeze the licensed rails, p2p volume just goes brrr
lumping ops applicants in with casinos reads like it targets pogo style operators, but the blast radius hits legit fintech too. a 12 month freeze outlasts the comment period by design
the 12 month freeze outliving the political heat is the point though, they are betting the startups give up first
politics here runs on 6 year cycles, a 12 month freeze is nothing to a lawmaker and fatal to a seed round. thats the asymmetry nobody prices in
or the startups pivot to pure p2p rails and skip the ops license entirely. the 2021 digital bank crowd proved waiting around for bsp is for suckers
bsp pulled the same move with digital bank licenses in 2021 and never published clear restart criteria. no startup burns runway for a year on the promise of maybe
the 2021 digital bank parallel is spot on. six got in, window shut, no reopen date published. anyone worth funding incorporated in singapore within a quarter
incorporating in singapore is one thing, but remittance flows still need local OPS partners on the ground. the singapore startups end up renting the exact rails the bsp just froze
true, but renting rails beats burning a year of runway on a maybe. the singapore crowd pays the vig to gcash and palawan and still ships faster than anything stuck in the bsp queue. just the cost of doing business now
giving up is not even required, one quiet quarter of no applications and BSP gets to call the freeze a success. paperwork theater
^ exactly, existing rails keep running while new entrants get locked out for 12 months. incumbents must be popping champagne over this one
a draft circular with a comment period attached, but the freeze starts before comments even close. that sequencing tells you the decision was made months ago
The casino risk bucket is doing a lot of work here. OPS applicants already file the same AML quarterly reporting as e-money issuers, a freeze adds nothing except keeping challengers out
read the draft again, existing ops operators can still expand services during the freeze. big players scale, newcomers locked out for a year. consumer protection lol
palawan and gcash already own the rails so a freeze just guards the giants. no fintech team survives a year in limbo waiting for BSP
gcash verification already took weeks before any of this. the freeze just ratifies the waiting list as official policy lol