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Embattled Binance restricts Singapore product offerings

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Cryptocurrency exchange Binance is slowly shutting down the huge following it had built up across the world. To remain compliant with Singapore’s regulatory entity, it has announced that it will restrict offering trading pairs and payment options in Singapore dollars. Additionally, the platform also revealed the removal of the app from Singapore iOs and Google Play stores.

In its official blog post, the exchange detailed,

“Binance P2P will remove SGD trading pairs on Friday, 2021-09-10 04:00 AM UTC (12:00 PM UTC+8). Users are advised to complete all related P2P trades and remove related trade advertisements by Thursday, 2021-09-09 04:00 AM UTC (12:00 PM UTC+8) to avoid potential trading disputes.”

Binance stated that the main intention behind the move is to create a sustainable ecosystem around blockchain technology and digital assets. It further went on to add that,

“Binance welcomes developments to our industry’s regulatory framework as they pose opportunities for the market players to have greater collaboration with the regulators. We are committed to working constructively in policy-making that seeks to benefit every user.”

Singapore regulators tagetting Binance

Some of the countries that have cracked down on the exchange this year are- Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada. South Africa’s financial regulator also joined the growing list when it recently warned its resident that the platform is not authorized to operate in the country.

The latest news comes after the CZ-led exchange appeared on the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s investor alert list. The regulator’s notice to the cryptocurrency giant last week warned that its global platform could be breaking the law by offering payment services to the residents of Singapore without an appropriate licence.

MAS, which happens to be Singapore’s central bank as well as a financial regulator, only mentioned “www.binance.com” on the investor alert list, which contains a record of unregulated entities that may have been erroneously regarded as being regulated or licensed by the watchdog.

Just two weeks earlier, the crypto exchange had onboarded Richard Teng, the former chief regulatory officer of the Singapore Stock Exchange, as CEO of Binance Singapore. Interestingly, Teng had also worked at the Monetary Authority of Singapore for more than a decade as director of corporate finance. It is also important to note that the Binance Singapore website, Binance.sg, was not placed on the aforementioned investor alert list. A spokesperson had earlier confirmed that the two are separate exchanges and that Binance.sg operates in the country with its own local executive and management team. Furthermore, the platform is backed by Vertex Venture Holdings and is entirely concentrated on developing the Singapore cryptocurrency ecosystem and servicing users in the country.

Binance Coin [BNB] fails to hit $500 while Binance bids adieu to Singapore Dollar pairs

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Prominent cryptocurrency exchange, Binance has been undergoing immense scrutiny by regulators from across the globe. While the crypto exchange deals with this, an array of new countries have been lining up and continue to call out the exchange for functioning without a license. Recently, Singapore’s financial watchdog, the Monetary Authority of Singapore [MAS], called out the exchange for functioning without a license. This would further prohibit the exchange from offering its services to Singaporeans.

In more recent updates, the exchange withdrew support for the Singapore dollar [SGD]. All SGD trading pairs were removed from the platform. Binance revealed that it would take down its application from the App Store as well as Google Play in the region.

Additionally, Binance’s native cryptocurrency Binance coin [BNB] was seen struggling to make it past the $500 mark. At the time of writing, BNB was trading for $494 with a 24-hour price change of a negative 2.28%. The entire week remained bleak for the altcoin as it witnessed a surge of only 1,71%.

Furthermore, the market cap of the asset was noted at $83 billion. The altcoin succumbed to the fourth position as Cardano [ADA] took over as the third-largest cryptocurrency.

Binance Coin [BNB] one-day price chart

Binance

The long-term or the one-day price chart of BNB noted a mixture of both bulls and bears. The Awesome Oscillator indicator sided with the bull by rolling out green closing bars. The Chaikin Money Flow [CMF] indicator on the other hand indicated bearish momentum as the CMF marker remained below the zero median in the bears’ arena. However, the marker was pointed upwards which restored hope in the BNB market.

The Relative Strength Index [RSI] indicator revealed that there was increased buying activity in the BNB market. The RSI marker remained over the 50 median in the buyers’ zone.

South African and Singaporean officials call out Binance

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Prominent cryptocurrency exchange, Binance continues to sink in troubled waters as more regulators including South Africa and Singapore call out the exchange for providing unauthorized services.

The past couple of weeks have been tough for the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. While regulators from the UK started the whole trend, a few others joined the train. An array of financial watchdogs from various countries began suggesting that the platform was operating in their region without a proper license. Now, South Africa joined the list as its monetary regulator, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority of South Africa [FSCA] went on to allege that Binance wasn’t authorized to deliver any sort of advice as well as intermediary services to its citizens.

In an elaborate notice, the FSCA stated,

“The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) warns the public to be cautious and vigilant when dealing with BINANCE GROUP as they are not authorized to give any financial advice or render any intermediary services in terms of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, 2002 (FAIS Act) in South Africa.”

Binance, however, denied this and pointed out that there was no “Binance Group” functioning in the region.

South Africa isn’t the only one; Singapore joins the list

While South Africa issued a warning, Singapore went on to ask the exchange to stop all its services in the region. The Monetary Authority of Singapore [MAS] noted that Binance could be breaching the region’s Payments Services Act. The platform reportedly failed to apply for a license under the law put forth by MAS, therefore, it isn’t authorized to provide any sort of services to Singaporeans.

Nizam Ismail, the founder of Ethikom Consultancy, a Singapore-based consultant, spoke about the same and stated,

“MAS is likely to take a holistic view on the application and consider the fact that Binance (global) has been put on the investor alert list. Binance (global) would have to show that it has remediated any shortcomings and that it will not, going forward, solicit trades from Singapore resident customers.”

BIS’s latest project urges Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Africa to test cross-border CBDCs

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The Bank of Internation Settlements’ aka BIS has been keeping an eye on the development of central bank digital currencies [CBDC] across the globe. In order to further spruce up the process, the bank hopes to initiate the whole cross-border system for CBDCs.

CBDCs have started to steer the world in a whole new direction. These central bank-issued assets seem to be the latest interest of governments across the globe. An array of countries have already developed the digital version of their fiat currency, however, a few others are still stuck in the research process. China has been at the top of the game as it has its asset already in use.

Now with an aim to get ahead in the race, BIS has urged the central banks of four regions namely, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Africa to join the bank’s latest initiative, Project Dunbar.

BIS’s Project Dunbar to focus on cross-border CBDCs

The aforementioned central banks have been working along with BIS to roll out a prototype that carries out cross-border CBDCs. The reason behind this is to uphold direct transactions and eliminating the requirement of intermediaries. With this prototype, the banks hope to diminish time as well as the cost of transactions.

Furthermore, the project would look into the “international dimension” of the design of the CBDC. Andrew McCormack, Head of the BIS Innovation Hub Centre in Singapore, would reportedly overlook the project.

Speaking about the same, McCormack said,

“Project Dunbar brings together central banks with years of experience and unique perspectives in CBDC projects and ecosystem partners at advanced stages of technical development on digital currencies. With this group of capable and passionate partners, we are confident that our work on multi-CBDCs for international settlements will break new ground in this next stage of CBDC experimentation and lay the foundation for global payments connectivity.”

Several bank officials from across the globe believe that this project could be great for the CBDCs of different countries.

Singapore’s financial watchdog seeks CBDC solutions while offering cash prizes

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Singapore has been making sure to embrace cryptocurrencies while progressing towards central bank digital currencies [CBDC]. The country’s latest move is proof enough for the same.

CBDCs have garnered immense attention. Intending to advance towards digitalization, countries across the globe have started to develop their native CBDC or a digital version of the existing fiat. China’s plunge towards the development of CBDC is no secret. While certain regions have just started probing the benefits of a CBDC, China has already sent its digital yuan out for testing.

Sprucing up the development of its very own CBDC, a prominent financial regulator of Singapore revealed that the country was taking suggestions and solutions from the public surrounding the CBDC.

Singapore elevates its CBDC game

In a recent blog post, the Monetary Authority of Singapore [MAS] noted that it was ready to hear ideas pertaining to CBDCs from the public, particularly fintech companies. Accordingly, fintech firms and institutions across the world will be allowed to apply for MAS’s CBDC challenge until 23 July 2021.

The Singapore regulator hopes to bag feasible CBDC solutions by offering prize money of 50,000 Singapore dollars to the first three winners. This initiative was further backed by prominent agencies like International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations Capital Development Fund, and the United Nations Development Programme, among several others.

Participants were urged to keep certain things in mind before presenting the solutions. This list included cost-effectiveness and accessibility, all this while upholding the “resilience and intergrity” of the existing financial system.

Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer of MAS addressed the competition and stated,

“Through the Global CBDC Challenge, MAS hopes to encourage innovator communities worldwide to develop and showcase solutions that can maximize the potential of CBDC to deliver efficiencies to payment services, improve financial inclusion, consistent with central banks’ core mandate of monetary stability.”

Additionally, the Global CBDC challenge was endorsed by Amazon Web Services, Mastercard, Partior, R3, and open-source software foundations, Hyperledger and the Mojaloop Foundation and managed by the API Exchange (APIX) and Tribe Accelerator.

Singapore’s DBS Private Bank dives into the crypto-verse with trust solutions

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The surge in the demand for crypto has reached Singapore as the region’s prominent bank went on to roll out a cryptocurrency trust solution.

Bitcoin [BTC] took the entire crypto-verse to another level following its five-fold growth over the last couple of months. The crypto market was put on a pedestal as its market cap grew over $2 trillion. This caused an array of people to flock into the industry which further impacted the demand for digital assets. In a recent report by the Business Times, it was revealed that DBS Private Bank, a prominent bank in Singapore it was taking its interest in crypto a step ahead.

Singaporean bank ventures into crypto trust solution

DBS Private Bank was seen addressing the needs of its clients with the launch of its crypto trust solution. The trust reportedly supports prominent assets like Bitcoin [BTC], XRP, Bitcoin Cash [BCH] as well as Ethereum [ETH]. With this platform, the bank hopes to aid the clients of the bank to invest and manage their crypto.

Joseph Poon, the group head of the Singaporean bank spoke about the platform’s latest venture and said,

“Our trust structure allows clients to conveniently hold these assets, with a peace of mind that they will be safely managed and passed on to their intended beneficiaries.”

This isn’t the first time that the bank had exerted its interest in crypto. Back in December 2020, the bank rolled out its very own cryptocurrency exchange. After witnessing massive growth with regard to volume from the crypto exchange, the platform decided to expand its inclination towards crypto.

Furthermore, Poon spoke about the next few steps and stated,

“In recent years, more clients have expressed interest or are already invested in digital assets and we expect this trend to accelerate as cryptocurrencies turn more mainstream.”

With 120 clients and trading volumes of 30 million Singapore dollars to 40 million Singapore dollars, in the first quarter of 2020, DBS Digital Exchange’s plunge into the crypto-verse could spruce up the digital asset market in the region.

MoneySense launches Campaign to raise public awareness on the perils Of Crypto Scams and online trading

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There’s no rose without a thorn, similarly, despite being immensely valuable, the crypto industry deals with scams and hacks. Singaporeans have been urged to stay safe against any possible scam with regard to crypto through a campaign.

Earlier this month, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore [MAS], the prominent financial regulator in the region, warned about the risks of trading cryptocurrencies. While the Chairman affirmed that MAS was keeping a close watch on the industry, he also urged Singaporeans to stay alert.

More recently, it was revealed that a campaign had been launched by the Singaporean national financial education programme, MoneySense to raise awareness with regard to the use of crypto.

Singaporeans To Use MoneySense’s Campaign To Stay Alert

The Straits Times reported that MoneySense had rolled out a campaign in light of the ongoing surge in the popularity of crypto. This initiative reportedly encourages users to steer clear of any potential scams pertaining to crypto and online trading. Users of digital assets are reminded to “always ask, check and confirm the legitimacy of the entity marketing the product before making any investment.”

The MoneySense web page talks about ways to identify investment scams, including red flags, fictitious track records, and many more.

MAS’s Shanmugaratnam had previously pointed out the volatile nature of crypto. He had further stated,

“The crypto assets space is constantly evolving. MAS has been closely monitoring developments and will continue to adapt its rules as needed to ensure that regulation remains effective and commensurate with the risks posed. Investors, on their part, should exercise extreme caution when trading cryptocurrencies.”

Furthermore, Lee Hsien Loong, the Singaporean Prime Minister had to encounter a scam that involved the sale of fake tokens, at the beginning of the month. Perpetrators gathered information from the Prime Minister’s social media accounts, prompting them to open a BitClout account without the Prime Minister’s permission. This caused quite a stir in Singapore at the time. Hence the latest campaign would be beneficial for the region.

“Singaporeans Remain Vigilant While Dealing With Crypto,” Alerts PM Lee Hsien Loong

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The Singaporean prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong was recently subject to a scam that involuntarily had him involved. A member of the BitClout platform had reportedly used the name of the prime minister in order to pocket some easy money. The user sold fake tokens worth over $10,000. The official revealed that the scammer had made use of the information available on his Twitter account to sell tokens on BitClout. Loong went on to asset that he had nothing to do with BitClout and the entire activity was reportedly done without his permission.

While this account was soon taken down, Loong took to Facebook and asked Singaporeans to stay alert against any possible scams with regard to crypto platforms. The post addressed to his 1.6 million followers read,

“I have discovered that my Twitter profile (and others as well) has been used without my permission or knowledge on a blockchain platform that allows users to buy and speculate with its proprietary cryptocurrency. [….] I urge everyone to remain vigilant when dealing with cryptocurrency platforms.”

Singaporean

Singaporean Financial Regulator Steps In

The Monetary Authority of Singapore [MAS] decided to address this. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the Chairman of the financial watchdog went on to reveal the risks involved in trading cryptocurrencies. Volatility has been a significant drawback of the crypto industry. Citing the same, Shanmugaratnam suggested that the value of crypto is not related to any economic fundamentals, which further makes them highly risky investment products. This would further not be very feasible for retail investors, he added.

Furthermore, the Chairman affirmed that MAS would make sure to alert Singaporeans about the perils of investing in the crypto industry, to avoid any possible losses. He added,

“The crypto assets space is constantly evolving. MAS has been closely monitoring developments and will continue to adapt its rules as needed to ensure that regulation remains effective and commensurate with the risks posed. Investors, on their part, should exercise extreme caution when trading cryptocurrencies.”

Gemini Dives Into Singapore Shores By Adding Support To SGD

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The Winklevoss twins have been rolling out several developments with regard to its cryptocurrency exchange Gemini. The platform has managed to stay relevant despite the great loss the COVID-19 pandemic had cast upon the entire world. Gemini even went on to reveal that it considered going public like another popular crypto exchange, Coinbase.

Gemini To Venture Into Asia

Several platforms figured that Asia was a promising market for cryptocurrencies. Gemini went all out with regard to its new venture. In a recent press release, Gemini revealed that it was moving into Singapore with an array of features. The platform started off by onboarding the Singapore Dollar [SGD] for both the desktop as well as the mobile application.

With this option, users would be able to purchase crypto with SGD through a debit card or even FAST transfers. Users from Singapore could even employ MyInfo through SingPass to auto-fill registration forms of Gemini accounts.

Singapore has been a hopeful market for many. OKCoin, a crypto exchange from San Fransisco recently revealed that it was diving into Singapore with a new office. Speaking about the potentials of Singapore, Gemini’s CEO and co-founder, Tyler Winklevoss said,

“Singapore is a financial epicenter in the heart of Asia and is a fast-growing market for cryptocurrency. Singapore is one of our biggest markets and supporting SGD is another exciting milestone on our mission to empower the individual through crypto.”

Additionally, the crypto exchange even set up an Asia Pacific office in Singapore. The office is reportedly hiring for several roles. The Head of Asia, Jeremy Ng suggested that the team was focused on localizing the exchange’s products to comply with both institutional as well as retail users. Ng added,

“We will continue to build out our presence and are aggressively hiring top calibre talent to join our mission to empower the individual through crypto.”

Singapore’s Largest Bank To Roll Out Digital Asset Exchange

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Digital Assets are the new everything! Singapore seems to be the latest to jump onto the bandwagon as countries and financial institutions have been steering towards setting up digital asset friendly platforms. The largest bank in the Asian country recently revealed its interest in the crypto-verse. While both tradings of crypto and crypto exchanges are legal in Singapore, DBS revealed that it had joined hands with Singapore Exchange [SGX] to roll out a digital asset exchange.

Singapore Dwells Deep Into Crypto

The largest bank in the Asian country, DBS revealed that it would launch an exchange that focuses on digital assets. The bank sought support from the Singapore Exchange that would acquire a 10% stake in the yet to be launched digital exchange. The digital exchange would be called DBS Digital Exchange and will be made available by next week.

While the exchange has listed an array of assets that would be paired against yet again several fiat currencies, the DBS Digital Exchange will be limited to institutional as well as accredited investors only. Speaking about the same the Group CEO at DBS, Piyush Gupta pointed out that the digitalization of assets paves the way for an array of opportunities to reshape the markets. He further added,

“For Singapore to become even more competitive as a global financial hub, we have to prepare ourselves to welcome the mainstream adoption of digital assets and currency trading. DBS is committed to accelerating the development of a fully integrated ecosystem to facilitate this. We believe that this is the first of its kind integrated offering, which is differentiated in many ways.”

The DBS Digital Exchange would support crypto assets including, Bitcoin [BTC], Ethereum [ETH], Bitcoin Cash [BCH] along with fiat currencies, Singapore Dollar [SGD], US Dollar [USD], Hong Kong Dollar [HKD], and the Japanese Yen [JPY]. Along with this, the exchange will reportedly present its users with Security Token Offerings along with Digital Custody Services.

The announcement also revealed that the platform had garnered approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore [MAS]. Elaborating on the 10% stake of the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX), the CEO of SGX, Loh Boon Chye said that with its latest move, both the platforms hope to “bring trust and efficiency in price discovery to the global digital assets space.”