Affected by new regulations in the UK, Binance suspended new user registrations and halted the provision of new products or services in October last year. Now, Binance is seeking to re-enter the UK market, but it’s not that simple. The reason is that potential local partners in the UK are unwilling to cooperate with Binance due to opposition from regulatory authorities.
(Previous summary:
Binance UK hit hard: new user registrations suspended, services restricted, what happened?)
(Background supplement:
TES puts pressure on Binance in the US! Florida and Alaska fully ban Binance.US operations.)
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of the UK introduced new regulations for cryptocurrency promotion, which officially took effect on October 8th of last year. According to Article 21, unregulated overseas digital asset service providers like Binance must cooperate with FCA-authorized companies to promote digital asset services in the UK.
However, after the FCA terminated Binance’s agreement with its partner, P2P lending company Rebuildingsociety.com, Binance reluctantly announced the suspension of new user registrations and the discontinuation of new products or services in October last year.
According to Bloomberg’s report, Binance is currently seeking to re-enter the UK market, but its efforts have encountered obstacles. In the past few months, at least three FCA-authorized UK companies that can supervise communications between cryptocurrency platforms and their clients have rejected Binance’s cooperation requests, according to insiders.
Two insiders revealed that before these potential partners of Binance declined, the FCA had expressed its concerns to several authorized companies that were inquired about cooperation with Binance.
The stance of the FCA indicates that Richard Teng, the new CEO of Binance, faces a daunting task. In November last year, Binance reached a settlement agreement with institutions such as the US Department of Justice, agreeing to pay a $4.3 billion fine. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao resigned as CEO and was succeeded by Richard Teng. He is seeking to rebuild global regulatory trust in Binance.
Binance denies encountering regulatory resistance in its efforts to re-enter the UK market. Binance stated in an email statement:
The legal challenges Binance is currently facing in the US have always been a major obstacle to its global operations. As early as 2021, the FCA warned consumers not to use Binance services because of the company’s opaque global structure and its inability to be effectively regulated.
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