Philippine bank leverages digital asset custody orchestration platform to become the first universal bank in the country to pilot cryptocurrency exchange services.                                                            

METACO, a provider of digital asset management technology to global financial institutions, announced this week that Union Bank of the Philippines has gone live on METACO’s flagship platform, Harmonize, to pilot the launch of crypto services for its clients.

UnionBank is launching a pilot programme for bitcoin and Ethereum custody and trading services for select retail customers, which follows other similar digital asset initiatives, such as launching its own stablecoin for remittance payments or launching its presence in the metaverse economy, the firm said in a statement. 

The president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr, highlighted the importance of blockchain and digital asset technologies at the recent opening of UnionBank’s Innovation Campus, outlining the power of the technology in furthering financial inclusion in the Philippines. 

UnionBank leverages Harmonize, METACO’s digital asset custody and orchestration platform, as a fully managed service deployed in the cloud, enabling it to manage governance and operations for the pilot, the firm continued. 

Working with the financial regulators and other industry participants, the bank aims to expand the service and create a safe and compliant environment for 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, the firm said. 

Harmonize will act as the foundational orchestration platform to support UnionBank as it readies itself for wider rollouts of its digital asset services, serving the needs of its customers while future-proofing its business model.

Welcoming the move, Henry Aguda, chief technology and operations officer and chief transformation officer at UnionBank said: “UnionBank’s collaboration with its strategic partner METACO has been critical in the bank’s pursuit of realising 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 a digital currency exchange feature for clients.”

Seamus Donoghue, chief growth officer at METACO added: “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,” he said. 

Swiss-based METACO is a technology provider to financial institutions and corporations in the digital asset ecosystem with Tier 1 and Tier 2 bank implementations in various regulatory jurisdictions, including Switzerland, Germany, France, the UK, the US, Turkey, Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong.