BSP open to raising limit of digital banking licenses to be issued

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) (Photo By patrickroque01/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

By Anna Leah Gonzales, Philippine News Agency

MANILA – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is open to increasing the limit of additional digital banking licenses to be issued next year, Deputy Governor for financial supervision Chuchi Fonacier said.

Fonacier told reporters late Monday that the increase, however, will still need to be approved by the Monetary Board (MB) of the BSP.

At present, six digital banks are operating in the country – GoTyme Bank, Maya Bank, Overseas Filipino Bank, UnionDigital Bank, UNObank, and Tonik Digital Bank.

In August, the BSP announced that it had lifted the moratorium on issuing new digital banking licenses.

Starting Jan. 1, 2025, the BSP will resume granting licenses to digital banks.

The BSP, however, will only accommodate four licenses as it only limits a maximum of 10 digital banks to operate in the country.

The BSP earlier said that several players have expressed interest in securing a license to operate as a digital bank.

“Even before the application period starts, we’re already entertaining questions, proposals. Siyempre (Of course), the proponents would already plan. We are already started engaging them,” Fonacier said.

For the remaining slots, the BSP earlier said it would allow the conversion of an existing bank license to a digital bank license.

The BSP is also determining which among the current digicentric institutions could be considered as operating like a digital bank.

Asked if there is a possibility of increasing the limit to more than four if enough players comply, Fonacier said, “Yes, there is a possibility.”

“It will be up to MB (if it will) go beyond the four,” she said.

“We’ll see once the applications start coming in and our assessment of the existing ones doing a digital bank-like operation.”