Having postponed the release of its final rules on ICOs (initial coin offerings), the Philippine SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) has set its second round of public consultation open until January 15, 2019.
“The Commission is inviting banks, investment houses, the investing public and other interested parties to submit their views, comments and inputs to the said proposed rules or guidelines which are revised based on the comments received during the previous round of public consultation,” SEC said in a statement.
SEC issued its consultation last August and was expected to release its ICO rules by end-2018 but decided to extend the discussions to gain more inputs to stakeholders.
The Commission noted that ICOs will help raise capital and resources for small and local businesses, startups or ventures, and will also provide alternative investment opportunity for the investing public.
Under its draft rules, SEC requires that startups or corporations proposing to conduct an ICO must submit an initial assessment request to the Commission not later than 90 days before the start of the planned pre-sale period.
The request should include an application form, proposed whitepaper, detailed background of the project and team members, and other documents. SEC will then review within 20 to 40 days the initial assessment request to determine whether the token is a security.
ICOs ruled as security tokens must then be registered with the SEC not later than 45 days before the start of the pre-sale period. Exempted from the rules are security tokens sold to fewer than 20 investors during any 12 month period, or sold only to qualified buyers such as banks, registered investment house, insurers, pension funds, investment companies, among others.
Featured image credit: Freepik
