The restrictions follow the departure of several high-profile compliance staffers, including chief compliance officer Lexi Herrera, the head of anti-money laundering (AML) transaction monitoring Chris Beaño and money laundering reporting officer Irish Calagui.

Neither Coins.ph nor the Philippines central bank responded to requests for comment by publication time.

A little over a year ago, the central bank clamped down on the use of e-wallet applications for gambling purposes, demanding institutions under its supervision cut in-app access to gambling sites.

As a result, several gambling entities migrated to Coins.ph, according to the people. The move had the added advantage of giving the firms access to crypto and stablecoins for paying…