The Binance exchange CEO says that it wants to expand its operations to the United Kingdom in the coming six to 18 months, despite being compelled by the nation’s regulator to cease trading in June.
CEO Changpeng Zhao said that the exchange wants to expand to the UK in the coming 18 months. The firm decided to do that despite being regulated by the nation’s watchdog to stop trading earlier this year.
The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) revoked Binance’s ability to trade in Britain in June 2021, amid a blanket regulatory crackdown on cryptocurrency exchanges. Binance is one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the world.
To become a registered crypto-asset company in the United Kingdom, the platform has to abide by money laundering and terrorist financing controls. To meet all these requirements, Zhao said that the firm was considering setting up a particular company to operate in the United Kingdom, similar to its Binance.US subsidiary.
On December 4, Zhao told the Telegraph that Binance wants to apply for an FCA license after it hired a “number of ex-regulatory staff from the UK” and a “couple of hundred compliance people” since the regulator issued the notice in June.
In October, the cryptocurrency exchange behemoth hired the former head of international relations at the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), as its chief regulatory liaison officer to help in facilitating better relations with various international regulatory bodies.
Zhao also indicated that this platform is now “fully re-engaged” with regulators and it is in the process of making “a number of very substantial changes” in “product offerings, our internal processes, and the way we work with regulators.”
Buy Crypto NowBinance Seeks Approval From FCA
With approval from the FCA, Binance may offer products like futures and derivatives in the United Kingdom. In September 2021, Binance said that Australian users would be given 90 days to close their positions for options, futures, and leveraged tokens as regulators continue to turn up the heat.
Binance has also suspended derivatives trading previously for the users in Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, as part of a wider plan to stop offering the products across Europe. In August 2021, the FCA published a supervisory notice saying that it was ‘not capable’ of effectively supervising Binance since it had not answered queries about its headquarters.
The crypto exchange has denied all allegations of market manipulation but it still faces some resistance from many jurisdictions like Malaysia, Germany, and South Korea.
