Cebu City Vice Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia. | file photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City government is set to implement cashless transactions for real property and business tax payments.
In a statement on Thursday, August 11, 2022, Cebu City Vice Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia said he recently met with an Electronic Money Issuer (EMI) to discuss integrating the company’s technology for real property and business tax payments in the City government.
Garcia said the cashless transaction is the “way to go” as the City aims to provide convenience to taxpayers — given the experience the City had during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Garcia, who also served as the City’s Local Finance Committee head before becoming vice mayor, said the current administration is committed to looking for “best arrangements” for its constituents.
Meanwhile, Garcia also said that C Pass Inc., a Cebu-based joint venture that has an existing memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the City to develop a stable coin for use in financial transactions, has entered the third stage of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ vetting process for Virtual Asser Service Providers.
Garcia noticed that some transactions in City Hall involved people abroad who already have ready access to cryptocurrency and prefer this system over online banks.
The MOU was signed last April 2021.
In the same statement, Charlie Seo, C Pass Inc treasurer, said once the third stage is complete, they will begin to issue its stablecoin C Peso and launch its app-based and web-based electronic wallet, which will enable users “to purchase, send, receive, and swap crypto-currency and fiat money.”
Seo said that the system they will employ here is the system employed in Korea and has a “one-is-to-one” crypto to fiat value, which means that one C Peso can be equivalent to P1.
This, reportedly, makes it advantageous for people, including low-income Filipinos, and overseas Filipino workers in remitting money to their families, tourists, and foreign investors. /rcg
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