The Philippines has the world's third largest remittance market just behind India and China, with overseas remittances reaching more than $25.1 billion in 2013. But due to the country's poor banking systems and expensive remittance services, overseas Filipino workers and the local workers working far from their provinces have always searched for alternative systems for transferring cash.

For generations, remittance services including Lhuiller and Palawan Pawnshop dominated the market in the Philippines, despite its high transaction fees. On average, the fees are close to 10 percent for small transactions ranging from $1 to $300. The majority of overseas workers have been using expensive remittance services due the bank's inefficiency in sending payments and its substantially high minimum deposit rates.

Since late 2013, Bitcoin startups aiming to introduce bitcoin as a remittance solution began to emerge. One of the first Bitcoin startups to do so is Coins.ph, founded by Ron Hose.

Coins.ph

Coins.ph launched its platform in 2014, announcing a major partnership with Metrodeal, the largest e-commerce store in the Philippines. Started out as a bitcoin payment processor for merchants and a bitcoin exchange, Coins.ph evolved into a complete bitcoin service through partnerships with the country's largest financial institutions and banks including the aforementioned remittance service Lhuiller, BDO (Banco de Oro), BPI, China Bank, HSBC, RCBC, MayBank and many others.