The Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank) has partnered with digital asset custodian Hex Trust to pilot its digital asset custody service that is in compliance with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

The collaboration will start with Hex Trust providing digital asset custody as an internal service for UnionBank employees as a pilot run.

This is in preparation for the next stage, to offer a fully commercialised digital asset custody service for the bank’s customers.

The bank added that this move allows it to meet the needs of customers who are now looking for a trusted and regulated institution to safekeep their digital assets.

Hex Trust is a fully licensed, insured financial institution that provides bank-grade custody for digital assets. The firm has built a proprietary bank-grade platform – Hex Safe™ – that delivers a custody solution for banks, financial institutions, asset managers, exchanges, and corporations.

“Digital assets are here to stay, whether it be in the form of cryptocurrency, NFTs or tokenised assets, and we are seeing more market demand for these.

 

We are excited to be the first Philippine bank to pilot a custody service for digital assets for our own employees, overseen by the BSP, so that we can prepare the groundwork for a safe and protected system for customers’ digital assets.”

said Henry Aguda, Chief Technology and Operations Officer, Chief Transformation Officer, Union Bank of the Philippines.

“Hex Trust’s collaboration with UnionBank enables secure access to the digital asset ecosystem via our award-winning enterprise-level custody platform.

 

Millions of the bank’s customers will soon have access to this new asset class. We are proud to be a part of the bank’s commitment as the Philippines’ leading digital bank.”

said Calvin Shen, Head of Sales & Business Development, Hex Trust.