Philippines’ central bank increases cyber-security measures
(6 June 2016 – Philippines) The Philippine central bank is bolstering cyber security surveillance to help boost banks' defences and is looking at regulating bitcoin operators to combat money laundering.
The Philippine central bank has set up a separate cyber security surveillance division to craft cyber security policies and conduct surveillance work, monitor cyber threats and test the ability of supervised institutions to manage cyber security issues, Nestor Espenilla central bank deputy governor in charge of banking supervision, said over the weekend.
"We have a core IT supervision group ... and within that group we created a new division that is focused on cyber security issues to strengthen our capacity to deal with these," he said.
Policymakers were also looking at tightening regulations for remittance companies and money changers, and regulating operators of virtual currencies to boost efforts to combat money laundering, he said.
According to Espenilla, users of digital currency bitcoin more than doubled in the Philippines in the first half of last year from the same period a year earlier, while bitcoin transactions purportedly passing through registered companies in the country range from US$2 to 3 million per month based on current estimates.
"That is what we are looking to do, whether it is now time to impose hard regulations for virtual currency operators. Right now, we look at them as akin to remittance companies," Espenilla said.
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