Union Bank Of Philippines Pilots Blockchain Remittance

The Union Bank which is a premier bank in the country of Philippines-based bank has successfully completed a pilot test of their blockchain-based cross-border remittance from the Philippines to Singapore.

The pilot is the result of a partnership between Union Bank and Singapore-based OCBC Bank, wherein the parties deployed the Adhara liquidity management and international payments platform and UnionBank-UBX’s i2i platform to make the remittance.

To be more specific, the bank made use of a blockchain-based tokenized fiat to remit from OCBC Bank to an account holder at a rural Cantilan Bank in the Philippines. The project thus aims to provide millions of unbanked Filipinos with the ability to use financial services by connecting rural banks to the country’s main financial network.

The Officer-in-charge in the department of technology risk and innovation supervision of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas — the country’s central bank, Melchor Plabasan, said that the agency is anticipating further adoption of blockchain as the technology streamlines payments and remittances systems.

Arvie de Vera, who is the UnionBank senior vice president and head of the fintech business group, said with the pilot’s use of i2i, rural banks can now receive direct-to-account remittances, and this is only the beginning. By connecting platforms using blockchain and other emerging technologies, other value-added services can now be made accessible to rural banks. He also said that this would give more power to the rural banks that were once financially excluded, with access to universal banking services.

Earlier this year in April, Bitspark, which is a blockchain-based bankless money transfer solution, announced that it is going to release a cryptocurrency connected to the Philippine peso for money transfers which would be known as “peg.PHP.” Reportedly consumers will have the ability to pay their bills with the help of a stablecoin in the form of a cash deposit at one of the shops in Bitspark’s network.