Binance was soliciting SG users without license, MAS says

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) reiterated that there is a “clear difference” between Binance and FTX, which played a role in only the former being included on the regulator’s Investor Alert List.

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In a letter addressing misconceptions amid the FTX fiasco, MAS said that while both crypto exchanges were not licensed to operate in Singapore, only Binance had been soliciting users in the city-state.

Binance also supported listings in Singapore dollars as well as payment methods specific to the city-state like PayNow and PayLah.

This resulted in the addition of the Changpeng Zhao-led exhange in the Investor Alert List, which includes companies “wrongly perceived as being licensed” or regulated by MAS, among other wrongdoings.

In the case of FTX, the regulator said it had “no evidence” that the company – founded by Sam Bankman-Fried – was soliciting Singaporean users.

“Trades on FTX also could not be transacted in Singapore dollars. But as in the case of thousands of other financial and crypto entities that operate overseas, Singapore users were able to access FTX services online,” MAS wrote in its letter.

Singapore is among the top three countries that have been affected the most by the collapse of FTX, which was one of the largest exchanges in the world. According to a study by CoinGecko, the city-state accounted for 5% of FTX’s global traffic, second to South Korea’s 6.1%.

See also: Singaporeans feel ‘betrayed’ by Temasek-backed FTX

MAS also said that it received “several complaints” regarding Binance from January through August 2021. At the time, other markets including Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand also announced that Binance was operating without relevant local licenses.

The platform operated in Singapore through Binance Asia Services. In June 2021, MAS said that the Binance unit’s application for a payment services license was under review.