Philippines central bank eyes tighter rules for new e-money issuers

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has proposed tighter regulations on e-money issuers, including increasing the requirements for both banks and non-bank financial institutions that are looking to enter the business. The BSP has released a draft circular focused on requiring enhanced due diligence for high-value e-money transactions. Based on the proposal, banks and nonbanks that are also electronic money issuers (EMIs) should prepare a minimum capitalization of PHP200m (USD3.87m) for this function. This is applicable to EMI banks that have a one-year average value of aggregated inflow and outflow transactions worth PHP25bn and higher. Small-scale EMI banks and nonbanks will need to comply with a PHP100m minimum capital requirement. As part of due diligence, the BSP will require EMIs to categorize their clients to determine transaction limits and suitable thresholds based on their risk assessment.