BSP Memorandum M-2025-029: suspend in-app gambling access in payment apps within 48 hours

On 14 August 2025, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Office of the Governor issued Memorandum No. M-2025-029 to all BSP-supervised institutions (BSIs). Monetary Board Resolution No. 805 of the same date approved the suspension of in-app gambling access from BSIs’ mobile payment apps and websites pending a later policy on online gambling payment services.

What the memo orders

All BSIs are instructed to remove links providing in-app gambling access in their mobile payment apps and websites within 48 hours of issuance. The memo defines in-app gambling access as any product or service that redirects an account holder to a gaming/gambling site. Governor Eli M. Remolona, Jr. signed the memorandum “For compliance.”

UA reading

This is a payments UX change for gambling access points inside e-wallet and bank payment apps — not a PAGCOR licence revocation and not an F2P store ban. Hybrid game/casino-adjacent creatives and deep links that relied on in-app wallet redirects into gambling destinations lose that path under the memo. Pure F2P game UA is adjacent only where creatives or flows were conflated with gambling payment shortcuts. The memo does not publish GCash- or Maya-specific transaction-drop percentages; those figures in secondary trade pieces are out of scope for this card.

Download the memo card.