Binance.com Limited Offerings For Singapore Customers: Report

Binance.com limited offerings for customers in Singapore as the central bank in the country ordered the exchange to stop soliciting the customers in the country as we reproted in our crypto news.

Binance announced limitations on the Singaporean customers three days after the country’s central bank stopped the exchange from operating and put it on the Investor Alert List after it ordered the exchange to stop soliciting business from the Singaporean residents. From midday Singapore time, Binance.com will stop trading pairs with the Singaporean dollar and stop the payment options as well as boot the app from the iOS and Google Play stores. Binance advised customers to finish their trades and remove ads by midday UTC on Thursday to avoid potential trading disputes.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore said that it “is of the view that Binance the operator of Binance.com may be in breach of the Payment Services Act” and ordered to stop providing payment services to teh Singaporean residents. The MAS then added binance.com to its Investor Alert List. The MAS hasn’t listed the Singaporean version of the Binance exchange and Binance.sg which is operate by the Binance Asia Services and remained unaffected by the ban.

The exchange operates via few subsidiary companies across the world that offer reduced services to comply with the local regulators. The terms of Binance.sg clarify that the sites operate separately from Binance.com as the main and global version of the exchange and accounts on the Singaporean platform are not connected in any way to accounts on Binance.com. However, it is still possible to access the exchange via a VPN and the exchange started verifying the customers’ identities. Binance was added to the Investor Alert List because it could have been wrongly perceived as being licensed or regulated by the MAS.

Binance Asia Services applied for a license and it is exempt from one until the application is approved, withdrawn, or rejected. Singapore’s Payment Services Act granted exchanges a grace period before it went into effect in 2020. Singapore is the latest to crack down on Binance, including Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, Italy, Cayman Islands, and the UK. Binance.com limited offerings in Singapore now so we will see if other countries do the same.