Ripple Converses with PH regulators, says Managing Director
“We do speak with the regulators, the Philippines included, we sometimes do that directly,” said Entwistle, while also noting that sometimes it is their partners who talked to regulators.
By Shiela Bertillo
Brooks Entwistle, RippleNet’s Managing Director of APAC, stated in an interview last Wednesday, September 15, that they are communicating with financial regulators in the Philippines. This initiative aims to build good relationships with regulators as the cryptocurrency industry continues to grow.
RippleNet is an international network that financial institutions can use to transfer money more quickly, with greater transparency and at less cost through a unified system. It is also the company behind XRP, a cryptocurrency used for remittances by companies such as Coins.ph, a local mobile wallet app.
“We do speak with the regulators, the Philippines included, we sometimes do that directly,” said Entwistle, while also noting that sometimes it is their partners who talked to regulators. “We also are quite confidential in these discussions as the regulators are the other way as well. But the Philippines is absolutely a place where we believe in that relationship. And making sure that at every move we make in all that we’re doing is widely discussed and telegraphed and in accordance with local regulations is very important.”
Entwistle also stated that the country has a “great regulatory environment, (with) super forward-leaning and capable regulators that want to be a part of innovation and we want to feed into that if we can be helpful.”
Consequently, last April, despite legal troubles in the United States, Ripple continues to build connections in the Asia Pacific through its new partnership with payments expert Novatti Group. The collaboration let Novatti join Ripple’s global payment network and have committed to tap into RippleNet’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service, which leverages the cryptocurrency XRP for instant cross-border payments.
The partnership first targets the Australia-Philippines corridor through a partnership with iRemit, a Filipino remittance service provider which also holds e-money and virtual currency exchange licenses. (Read more on: Ripple’s ODL to Aid iRemit Process Australia-Philippines Remittances)
Moreover, Ripple announced in July its first live implementation of its On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service that will be used to facilitate cross-border transactions between Japan and the Philippines. Japan’s SBI Remit and the Philippines’ Coins.ph will use ODL to leverage the digital asset XRP to eliminate pre-funding and other operational costs by both parties. (Read more on: Coins.ph Partners with SBI Remit to Utilize Ripple’s XRP for PH-Japan Remittances)
However, recently the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) opposed the request made last August by Ripple and its co-founder Chris Larsen to answer interrogatories for the regulator’s “vague and ambiguous” response regarding the agency’s application of the Howey test for determining the status of XRP.
The ongoing lawsuit against Ripple was filed last December by the SEC, alleging that the company’s sale of XRP was an unregistered security offering worth more than $1.38 billion.
Source: Rappler
This article is published on BitPinas: Ripple Converses with PH regulators, says Managing Director
