Union Bank of the Philippines taps METACO for custody and trading of digital assets
“Our bank-grade digital asset orchestration platform, Harmonize, provides UnionBank with the optionality to securely explore a range of retail and institutional digital asset use cases, from crypto custody, investment and trading, to the fast-growing Metaverse economy in the Philippines.”
The Union Bank of the Philippines has gone live on METACO’s Harmonize in order to pilot the launch of crypto services for its clients after recently being granted a crypto license under the supervision of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
The pilot program will focus on Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) custody and trading services and will count with the participation of select retail customers.
The bank has previously launched its own stablecoin for remittance payments and is now present in the Metaverse economy.
METACO offers a digital asset custody and orchestration platform
METACO’s Harmonize is a digital asset custody and orchestration platform that provides a fully managed service deployed in the cloud. Its digital asset ecosystem has significant Tier 1 and Tier 2 bank implementations in various regulatory jurisdictions, including Switzerland, Germany, France, United Kingdom, United States, Turkey, Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong.
The platform will enable UnionBank to manage governance and operations for the pilot as the bank aims to expand the service and create a safe and compliant environment for millions of Filipinos to custody and exchange digital currencies such as Bitcoin, straight from their existing mobile banking app, without the need to open or manage separate wallet services.
UnionBank will leverage the orchestration platform to prepare wider rollouts of its digital asset services.
Henry Aguda, Chief Technology & Operations Officer and Chief Transformation Officer at UnionBank commented: “UnionBank’s collaboration with its strategic partner METACO has been critical in the bank’s pursuit of realizing its vision of delivering superior, customer-centric services to the Philippine market. We are proud to continue UnionBank’s series of industry firsts, this time being the first regulated bank in the country allowing digital currency exchange feature for clients.”
Seamus Donoghue, Chief Growth Officer at METACO commented: “As a key strategic partner, we are proud to see METACO Harmonize going live in six months since the project effectively commenced, and now supporting the launch of UnionBank’s digital asset pilot with select customers. Our bank-grade digital asset orchestration platform, Harmonize, provides UnionBank with the optionality to securely explore a range of retail and institutional digital asset use cases, from crypto custody, investment and trading, to the fast-growing Metaverse economy in the Philippines.”
