On June 26, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority officially banned Binance Markets Limited from carrying out regulated activities in the country after the company’s UK unit could not live up to the country’s anti-money laundering (AML) requirements. British customers will still be able to buy and sell crypto on Binance.com. However, the website and the mobile app will, starting from June 30, greet UK residents with a prominent warning about the company’s new status.
After facing multiple warnings from several countries and getting restricted in the UK market, Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao said that “Compliance is a journey.”
In a blog post published on the website, Zhao outlined Binance’s plans to improve its regulatory compliance and address the current shaky position his company finds itself in. He said that it “hasn’t gotten everything right and has plenty of room to grow” and that the industry itself still has a lot of uncertainty about it.
“We hope to clarify and reiterate our commitment to partner with regulators and that we are proactively hiring more talent, putting in place more systems and processes to protect our users,” Zhao added. He further said that Binance would work hard on improving compliance issues in the face of these developments. Some of the steps he mentioned in the letter were hiring new people and growing an international compliance team, partnering with anti-crime organisations, and localizing their operations to ensure the activities are following the local laws.
The struggle with UK’s authorities is not the only one Binance has faced recently. On June 25, the Japanese Financial Services Agency issued its second warning to Binance, claiming that the company isn’t registered to operate in the country. In April, Germany issued its own warning to Binance for offering digital tokens of publicly traded companies, for which the proposed fine is $6 million.
Canada and Thailand also pressed down on Binance with warnings of their own. Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission filed a criminal complaint that alleges how Binance had no authorization to operate in their country. Ontario Securities accused multiple exchanges of failing to comply with local regulations, leading Binance to completely shut down its operations in Ontario.
It seems like the current situation is nothing more than a hiccup from the perspective of cryptocurrency exchanges, which have been struggling with compliance ever since the first Bitcoin was traded. Zhao openly asked for guidance on this matter in a letter that he finished by saying, “I and everyone at Binance are ready and look forward to being a partner in developing and following guidelines that will help the industry grow in a sustainable manner. And together, we will help to increase freedom in the society in a sustainable and responsible way.”
