Background & Biography
Remolona began a six-year term as BSP governor on July 3, 2023, following his service on the Monetary Board from 2022. The central bank’s current leadership pages identify him as governor and chairman of the board, roles that place him at the intersection of monetary policy, financial stability and payment-system development.
His experience includes 19 years at the Bank for International Settlements and 14 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. From 2019 to 2022, he was professor of finance and director of central banking at the Asia School of Business in Kuala Lumpur. He also served as an independent director of Bank of the Philippine Islands and chaired its risk management committee. His education includes an economics doctorate from Stanford University and an economics degree from Ateneo de Manila University.
Notable Contributions
In a 2024 address to the Association of Philippine Correspondent Bank Officers, Remolona described wholesale central bank digital currency as a potential means of reducing frictions in cross-border payments, securities settlement and intraday liquidity. He discussed Project Agila’s initial target of transfers among a limited group of financial institutions, including possible operation outside regular business hours.
The BSP’s 2024 annual report subsequently recorded completion of Project Agila testing with participating financial institutions. The proof of concept evaluated distributed-ledger technology and tokenisation for inter-institutional payments when the existing PhilPaSSplus settlement system was unavailable. This was an institutional experiment, not evidence that a retail digital peso had been issued to the public.
The research continued beyond that testing milestone. An IMF technical-assistance report published in June 2026, covering a late-2024 mission, identified tokenised government-bond settlement and cross-border payments as areas for further exploration. Its recommendations included sustained stakeholder engagement, resources for project management and a suitable legal framework. These are findings about the BSP programme rather than individual inventions attributed to Remolona.
Why Katharos.ai Follows Eli Remolona Jr.
Remolona’s statements provide a policy perspective on the practical uses and limits of digital money. The questions raised by wholesale CBDC research are concrete: who can hold the instrument, when institutions can transfer funds, how settlement works and what changes are needed before a prototype becomes operational.
Katharos.ai follows this work because it connects distributed-ledger experiments with existing financial infrastructure. The relevant comparison is not simply between old and new technology, but between alternative ways to address documented payment problems. The profile does not equate interest in a central-bank instrument with endorsement of cryptocurrency trading or a privately issued token.
Areas to Follow
Areas to follow include the BSP’s published CBDC roadmap, further technical assessments, the design of any additional trials and the treatment of securities settlement and large-value cross-border payments. New announcements should be checked for their actual stage: consultation, sandbox, pilot, formal issuance decision or production service.
Cross-border payment connectivity also extends beyond CBDC. In the same 2024 address, Remolona discussed Project Nexus, a BIS-led effort to connect instant payment systems. That initiative should be distinguished from Project Agila rather than described as another application of the same ledger. Changes in governance, participant access, operational resilience and settlement arrangements will be important to assess alongside claims of faster or cheaper payments.
Reporting Scope
Coverage prioritises original BSP statements, official leadership records, annual reports and technical documents from institutions involved in the work. Project Agila began before Remolona became governor. Reporting should preserve that chronology and credit the central bank, participating institutions and technical contributors for their respective work. Conclusions from a limited test should remain bounded by the tested use cases, participants and conditions.
Areas of Influence Category
Policy & Regulation is the primary category, reflecting Remolona’s central-bank leadership and public role in the evolution of payment infrastructure. His relevance to blockchain coverage comes from wholesale digital-currency research and the policy requirements surrounding tokenisation and settlement. The profile remains unranked and is intended as a guide to documented influence, not an investment recommendation.
Current Position
Governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and chairman of its Monetary Board.
Photo Credit
Archival photograph: Eli Remolona Jr. at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, January 15, 2024. Photo: Anil Murthy / WIPO, CC BY 4.0; Flickr/Commons also records CC BY 2.0. Cropped to 16:9.
Source notice: Information and images are attributed to the external sources listed. Katharos.ai does not endorse the subjects or claims described and does not independently certify the authenticity of every source statement or image.