Largest Philippines crypto exchange, Coins.ph, said to face central bank regulatory action

The restrictions follow the departure of several high-profile compliance staffers, including chief compliance officer Lexi Herrera, the head of anti-money laundering (AML) transaction monitoring Chris Beaño and money laundering reporting officer Irish Calagui.

Neither Coins.ph nor the Philippines central bank responded to requests for comment by publication time.

A little over a year ago, the central bank clamped down on the use of e-wallet applications for gambling purposes, demanding institutions under its supervision cut in-app access to gambling sites.

As a result, several gambling entities migrated to Coins.ph, according to the people. The move had the added advantage of giving the firms access to crypto and stablecoins for paying offshore partners, according to a third person familiar with central bank regulatory processes.

The recent Coins.ph restriction was not time-bound, unlike the temporary suspensions typically imposed on market participants for failing to comply with throughput or latency requirements, for example. In this case, no reason was given, one of the people said.

Coins.ph was one of the earliest crypto wallets and exchanges in the Philippines and later pivoted to providing broader financial services.

In January 2019, Indonesian technology company Gojek bought Coins.ph for $95 million. Coins.ph was later sold to Wei Zhou, who was previously Binance’s chief financial officer.