Binance needs no introduction, for it is one of the world's most influential crypto exchange platforms. In fact, its market presence is so dominating that there are two Binance entities in Singapore. There's Binance.com, the international crypto exchange platform that you are probably familiar with. There is also Binance.sg, which is the Singapore branch of Binance; it has its own local executive and management team and runs independently of Binance.com.

Binance has attracted a lot of FUD-inducing press in recent years. In June 2021, it was banned in the United Kingdom from undertaking any form of regulated activity. In fact, way back in 2019, Binance was banned in the United States, which subsequently led to the formation of Binance.US. Unfortunately, the CEO of Binance.US, Brian Brooks resigned from his position in August 2021, a move that raised more than a few eyebrows of invested users from all over the world.

Yesterday (2nd September 2021), something happened in Singapore that caused many crypto users to panic. Our national daily, The Straits Times, reported that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) had ordered Binance.com to stop providing payment services in Singapore and cease soliciting business from Singapore residents. The cessation of payment services wasn't exactly spelt out in the article, but it is likely to refer to how Singaporeans will not be able to buy or sell crypto using our bank account or locally issued debit/credit cards. 

Apparently, Binance.com had not applied for a license under the Payment Services Act with the MAS prior to offering payment services to Singaporean users. Binance.sg remains unscathed, by the way. This is because Binance.sg is actually a separate legal entity from Binance.com and is exempted from holding a license under the Payment Services Act.

So only users of Binance.com in Singapore will be affected by this surprise move from MAS. To be fair, MAS did not impose an outright ban on the operations of Binance.com in Singapore. Its listing on MAS's investor alert list just sends a signal to consumers that Binance.com is not licensed to provide any payment services in Singapore.

Nonetheless, the social media forums in our fintech landscape are rife with talk about what Binance.com users should do. I think we are particularly scared because our neighboring country, Malaysia, had ordered Binance to disable its main exchange in the country, going as far to call it "an illegal digital asset exchange". Some users are understandably concerned that should the MAS ban Binance-related P2P transactions in the future, they would not be able to get back their digital assets in time. Some users have in fact already transferred all their digital assets on Binance.com to their offline hard wallets. Suffice it to say that many pragmatic Singaporeans will most likely shun away from Binance.com and even its affiliate, Binance.sg.

This news appeared to be impactful enough such that Bloomberg reported on MAS's ruling. I guess we are all waiting with bated breath to see how Binance CEO Zhao Changpeng will lead his company out of this spate of negative developments!

Are you invested in Binance.com? Does this news rattle you?

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels