Peso Push: BPI Taps Stablecoin Rails to Speed Up Freelancer Pay 🪙

The Bank of the Philippine Islands is preparing to pilot a stablecoin-based settlement system for inbound remittances, targeting freelancers, virtual assistants and other overseas workers who send earnings back to the Philippines. The pilot is being developed with Meridian, a global digital clearinghouse, and is intended to lower costs and shorten processing times while preserving the risk controls of conventional banking, according to reports from ABS-CBN and the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Under the planned flow, stablecoins would serve as the settlement instrument before funds are converted into Philippine pesos and credited to recipients' BPI accounts. BPI President and CEO Jose Teodoro Limcaoco framed the move as a natural extension of the bank's digitalization strategy, saying the bank is looking at ways to make funds arrive faster and more cheaply without compromising security.

The initial focus will be on payroll and other overseas earnings, with BPI signaling a broader rollout ahead of the 49th ASEAN Summit in November. The bank said it will coordinate with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the country's central bank, throughout the pilot and that any wider deployment will depend on consumer protection standards, stablecoin reserve transparency and other regulatory safeguards.

BPI's initiative lands alongside a broader push in the Philippines toward regulated digital finance, with the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission recently signaling readiness to move forward with real-world asset tokenization. The bank has not disclosed a start date for the stablecoin pilot or the specific stablecoins that will be used for settlement.