A payments-led regime
The Philippines regulated virtual asset services early and from an unusual starting point: remittances. With a very large overseas workforce sending money home, crypto rails were first framed as a payments and money-transfer question, and supervision sits with the central bank rather than a markets regulator.
That framing shows in the obligations, which lean toward customer identification, transaction monitoring, consumer protection and operational resilience.
Where the SEC comes in
The BSP licence covers virtual asset services. Where what is being offered is a security — an investment contract, a yield product with the characteristics of one — the Securities and Exchange Commission’s registration and disclosure requirements apply separately. The SEC has been notably active in warning against unregistered investment offerings.
What to check
The BSP publishes the list of licensed VASPs. The SEC publishes advisories naming entities operating without authorisation, and those advisories are a genuinely useful consumer resource — they name specific operations rather than describing risk in the abstract.
Sources
- Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Virtual asset service providers (1 Jan 2026)
- Securities and Exchange Commission (Philippines), Advisories (1 Jan 2026)
Not legal or tax advice. This is a summary of published rules, not legal or tax advice. Rules change; check the primary sources linked above.
Last reviewed by Conisec Staff. Review cadence: Quarterly.