Philippines central bank to pause new payment operator registrations for a year

TREE NEWS update: The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) plans to suspend acceptance of new registrations, licensing, and related authorization applications from payment system operators (OPS) for one year. The moratorium aims to facilitate a comprehensive review of the classification and licensing framework for OPS. The draft also proposes a central database for QR-accepting merchants, integrating merchant identity, registration, payment service providers, settlement accounts, and risk classification, with status flags.