CRYPTO PLAYERS VYING FOR A SPOT IN SINGAPORE.

Cryptocurrency service providers are vying for a presence in Singapore, despite the city-financial state’s regulator maintaining a tight grip on the technology platform industry, as evidenced by the recent ban on Binance.com, one of the world’s most famous crypto trading systems.

Many organisations providing services to the growing industry have sprung up in tandem with the global surge in crypto exchanges, with several of them seeing the Singaporean financial centre as a site upon which to grow their operations and establish a position in Southeast Asia.

Despite the poor prospects of obtaining permission, Luno, Matrixport, and Cabital have informed Nikkei Asia that they are pursuing permission to practice in Singapore. Whenever it comes to selecting who will be allowed to function in the industry, officials have indeed been exceedingly choosy thus far.

Luno, a company that sells and stores cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and Ethereum, said in October that traders in Singapore can now move money for free from any domestic Singapore dollar-denominated checking account to crypto wallets.

The London-based firm said it is working to secure a licence from Singapore’s Monetary Authority to operate operations in the city-state.

Luno can continue to function in Singapore whereas its proposal is being evaluated, owing to a financial regulatory exemption.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has demonstrated that it is forward-thinking, innovative, and transparent, which is highly valued as a regulatory strategy that supports the sector. Some crypto players consider the city-regulator states to be pre-digital assets, especially in comparison to the harder attitudes taken by other Asian countries.

Singapore, which has no limitations on digital assets, is evaluating the fitness of crypto players to function in the city-state, while simultaneously maintaining a tight grip on the industry to guide its development.

Binance.com was instructed by MAS to halt offering services to the citizens of the city-state in early September. It placed Binance.com on an Investor Alert List, alerting customers that the site lacked a licence to conduct payment systems.

Binance Singapore, a subsidiary of the same parent business as Binance.com, has filed for a MAS licence and, like Luno, is operating on a temporary permit depending on the results of its permit process.

Some traders, on the other hand, perceive Binance Singapore’s products as covering a large of its sister company’s, which offers a much larger number of crypto coins. Singapore’s central bank has followed regulators from the United Kingdom to Hong Kong in increasing their scrutiny of Binance’s divisions, indicating a desire by governments around the world to have more control over the company’s largely free-flowing operations.

Binance.com, another of the best cryptocurrency websites in the world, has had a run-in with Singapore’s financial services authority, highlighting the difficult scenario that such sites face in getting a foothold in the financial centre.

Maurizio Raffone, chief operating officer at Credify, a Singapore-based banking tech firm, stated, “Singapore would appreciate having regulated digital services providing an added layer of knowledge and security for all those individual investors wanting to invest in cryptocurrency.” There are various advantages to this method, one of which is that it makes it a lot easier for the regulator to supervise the activity of a few regulated crypto sites, with greater implementation of understanding and anti-money-laundering protocols.”

Aside from the financial benefits of accessing the financial centre, acquiring a licence can help crypto trading player raise their profile.

Cabital, a crypto broker based in Singapore, informed Nikkei that this is aiming at obtaining a licence in the city-state even by end of each year. It claims to already run an exchange that serves the United Kingdom as well as the European Union.