Financial watchdog FCA bans Binance in Britain

Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ordered cryptocurrency exchange Binance to stop undertaking any regulated activity in the country, saying the firm lacked authorisation.

The exchange would not be allowed to undertake any regulated activities without the prior written consent of the FCA, the watchdog said in a statement dated Saturday.

“No other entity in the Binance Group holds any form of UK authorisation, registration or licence to conduct regulated activity in the UK,” the FCA statement said.

Britain’s move comes at a time when Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, is under scrutiny by regulators in other countries, including the US, Germany and India.

Officials from the US justice department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) who probe money-laundering and tax offences have sought information from individuals with insight into the company’s business, Bloomberg reported in May.

In April, Germany’s financial regulator BaFin warned the exchange risked being fined for offering digital tokens without an investor prospectus.

On Friday, India’s financial crime-fighting agency said that Binance-owned WazirX, one of the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges and its directors, were under investigation for suspected violation of foreign exchange regulations.

The investigation comes at time when the Indian government is mulling whether to introduce a law that could ban cryptocurrencies.

The federal Enforcement Directorate (ED) said that the probe involved transactions worth 27.90-billion rupees ($381.93m). The investigation into WazirX — owned since 2019 by Binance — began when the ED was looking into a money-laundering case which involved Chinese-owned illegal online betting applications, it said.

Reuters