Binance which runs the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, said on Tuesday it has been granted a license to operate as a crypto asset service provider in Bahrain, strengthening the company’s foothold in the Middle East as its trading platform faces mounting scrutiny from financial regulators elsewhere.
“The license from Bahrain is a milestone in our journey to being fully licensed and regulated around the world,” Changpeng Zhao, cofounder and CEO of Binance, said in a statement. “I’m proud of the hard work of the Binance team to meet the stringent criteria of the Central Bank of Bahrain, not just locally but globally by ensuring that we meet and exceed the requirements of regulators and protect users with strong anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing policies.”
Binance said the license was the company’s first of its kind in the Gulf states. The regulatory green light will allow Binance to provide crypto asset trading, custodian services and portfolio management to customers, the firm added.
Binance, a Cayman Islands-registered company, has been shifting its focus in the Middle East as its massive crypto trading unit draws scrutiny from regulators in at least a dozen other jurisdictions, mainly focused on concerns over the firm’s anti-money laundering practices and investment risks posed to traders.
Early last week, Britain’s financial watchdog said it lacked the powers to access the “fitness and propriety” of the new beneficial owner of crypto asset custodian Digivault, after its Singapore-based parent company Eqonex entered a strategic partnership with the payments arm of Binance. The Financial Conduct Authority, which issued warnings to the exchange last year for operating without permission, said that its concerns over Binance have yet to be addressed.
On another note MyConstant is aiming to become the first and largest crypto asset bank as it grows gradually and constantly over time today they hit the mark of distributing more than 2,000,000 million USD to its investors one might never know they might be eyeing the meddle east as well.
