Binance is on the investor watch list of the Monetary Authority of Singapore
With Monetary Authority of Singapore requiring Binance to stop targeting users from Singapore, Binance rolled out certain measures
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On November 21, Singapore’s Central Bank, The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), addressed a few questions regarding why Binance was on the investor watch list, whereas FTX, the crypto exchange that filed for bankruptcy, was not on the list.
MAS made it clear that although both Binance and FTX were not licensed in Singapore, it was only Binance that was quite active in targeting users from Singapore, making offerings denominated in Singapore dollars and accepting payments through local payment platforms like PayNow and PayLah.
This action was noted to be a possible contravention of the Payment Services Act (PS Act), thus making MAS place Binance on its investor watch list in September 2021. Between January and August 2021, MAS also received multiple complaints about Binance.
MAS explained that the main reason behind the investor watch list is “to warn the public of entities that may be wrongly perceived as being MAS-regulated, especially those which solicit Singapore customers for financial business without the requisite MAS licence.†They also said, “It is not possible to list all of them, and no regulator in the world has done so.â€
With MAS requiring Binance to stop targeting users from Singapore, Binance rolled out certain measures, such as taking out its mobile application from all the app stores of Singapore and geo-blocking of Singapore IP addresses.
