The Philippines is gaining momentum as one of the most promising economies in Asia. Experiencing robust economic growth, with a young 100-million strong population, the country is ripe for innovation in the financial sector.
Economies like the Philippines are the ones standing to benefit the most from financial innovation and even disruption. As the banking sector fails to serve about 73% of the population, the state of financial inclusion at present is dismal. The financially underserved continue to operate outside of the main thoroughfares of prosperity, unable to have a voice and benefit from the many advantages of having access to bank accounts, loans, insurance, credit and debit facilities.
Despite this, Filipinos are among the most technology and telecommunications savvy in the world.
Technology and mobile platforms are seen as the solutions that will help bridge the gap between the financially savvy and the underserved. One of the most intriguing solutions is the use of digital currency, from payments to money transfer to the massive Filipino market for remittances, which stands at nearly $14billion. Bitcoin stands as the forefront of the global phenomenon known as cryptocurrency, a digital form of money that uses high-level encryption and extremely complex algorithms as its guarantee of security.
The recent proposal of the “E-peso Bill” in Congress strengthens the case for bitcoin, as even local politicians, not exactly known for their penchant for disruptive technologies, are beginning to take notice of the advantages of adopting new ways of serving the financially excluded populace.
FIRST BITCOIN ORDER BOOK EXCHANGE
Coinage.ph is the first order book bitcoin exchange in the Philippines. Created and launched by Filipinos with a knack for good code and design, as well as a passion for innovation, the exchange has already been lauded for its beautiful interface and slick branding. The tagline “Bitcoin Exchange for the New Coin Age” sticks as a clever pun alluding to the exchange’s name, which stands for both money creation and invention, as well as a new era in finance.
The bitcoin community in the Philippines is expanding.
“An order book exchange is crucial to establishing bitcoin in the Philippines,” says Founder and CEO Anthony Giovanni Chua, one of the country’s first cryptocurrency programmers and a thought-leader in the field. He has been into bitcoin since its very early stages, when it was valued at only $1. He believes that price discovery in the local currency is important for the success of the bitcoin ecosystem in the country. “We eliminate our dependence on foreign exchanges, which peg the bitcoin value to foreign currencies, especially the US dollar. With Coinage, we are able to establish the real Filipino price, based on whatever we want to sell or buy it for. It also uniquely serves our market by being able to sell bitcoin in smaller chunks. We intentionally price it at mBTC to make it more affordable and accessible for the regular Pinoy,” he says.
Chua is joined by two of his business colleagues, Oscar Bicada III and Michelle Varron, who are behind the clever design and branding of the site. The three were all based in Cebu and partners in a boutique ad agency before they chose use their skills to venture into another field. Coinage.ph is part of the Satoshi Citadel Industries (SCI) group of companies, www.sci.ph. SCI is an umbrella company that has several bitcoin companies under its belt, encompassing a wide range of services that include payment processing, remittance, bills payment, bitcoin faucets and prepaid bitcoin products.
Today, Coinage has over 200 signups and trades are growing exponentially by the day. They are promoting a 0% transaction fee until November 5, to make trades even more exciting and affordable.
With these young visionaries at the helm, the money game just got infinitely more interesting.
