The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country’s financial regulator and central bank, said it would follow up as required with the local unit of Binance Holdings. This comes after its parent company came under scrutiny from global authorities.
Bloomberg reported that MAS is expected to follow up with the company’s local subsidiary Binance Asia Services Pte Ltd.
Binance Asia Services has a grace period during which it can operate in Singapore while the MAS reviews its application for a licence to provide digital payment token services, said the regulator.
Under the Payment Services Act, entities which were carrying on regulated business before the commencement of the Act on 28 January 2020 are allowed to continue providing their services while their licence applications are being processed.
“We are aware of the actions taken by other regulatory authorities against Binance and will follow up as appropriate,” said the MAS in an interview with The Business Times.
The move comes after Binance was banned by Britain’s markets regulator earlier this week over concerns that it was not doing enough to prevent money laundering and other financial crimes on its platform.
Japan had issued a similar notice the day before warning Binance was not registered to do business within the country.
Binance Asia Services runs the Binance.sg platform, popular with Singaporeans trading in bitcoin and several other cryptocurrencies.
According to The Business Times, a spokesman for Binance Asia Services, which is backed by Temasek unit Vertex Holdings, stressed that the company is a separate legal entity from the other Binance entities abroad.
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