The Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (Ceza) owned by the government of the Philippines is currently in the process of issuing more crypto licenses as interest for the license by offshore companies “surpassed all our expectations,”according to the authority’s administrator. At present, 17 firms have already paid in full while 19 more are in the pipeline as Ceza expects to earn around $68 million from issuing crypto licenses.

The government authority recently announced that it plans to issue 25 Financial Technology Solutions and Offshore Virtual Currency (Ftsovc) licenses which will allow them “to establish a financial tech, crypto, and blockchain office”at the zone as reported by Bitpinas news.

The Philippines News Agency stated that Ceza Administrator and Chief Executive Officer Raul Lambino revealed, “17 fintech and offshore virtual currency firms have already paid in full the application and license fees for the digital coin trading under Ceza … 19 companies are in the pipeline to pay their application and license fees to Ceza.”

Ceza awarded a license to Liannet Technology, an Apsaras Group subsidiary, last week—making this the second it issued since the first granted to the Hong Kong-based Golden Millenial Quickplay in June.

Local news outlet the Philippine Daily Inquirer cited Lambino who revealed, “Other firms that had already paid fees to operate in Ceza were Formosa Financial Holdings, Sino-Phil Economic Zone Agency Development and Management Corp., Asia-Pacific International Ltd., Hong Kong Yuen Shing-Hong Ltd., Tanzer Inc. and Rare Earth.”

In a press statement on Friday, Lambino said that the income from the Ftsovc application and license fees “exceeded 2017 revenue by more than 50 percent.” Offshore companies’ interest to operate in Ceza “surpassed all our expectations,”Lambino added as he noted that fintech operations are expected to create around 20,000 jobs initially.

The publication stated that Ceza “has earned more than P200 million [~$3.7 million] from offshore financial technology firms to raise its total revenues to at least P340 million [~$6.4 million] by the end of the second quarter of the year.” It elaborated, “Ceza expects to earn some PHP3.6 billion (~US$68 million) from the issuance of Ftsovc licenses, on top of the 0.1 percent share for every transaction value of registered digital coin exchanges.”

There were recent reports that Ceza plans to launch its own cryptocurrency. Ceza staff, however, clarified that such is not the case.

https://www.coinwire.com/interest-spikes-as-cagayan-economic-zone-authority-issues-crypto-licenses