The Financial Authority of Singapore (MAS), the nation’s central financial institution, launched an announcement Nov. 21 to handle “some questions and misconceptions which have arisen within the wake of the FTX.com (FTX) debacle.” The company defined its
The primary level MAS wished to make was that it couldn’t defend native customers from the fallout from FTX collapse “reminiscent of by ringfencing their property or guaranteeing that FTX backed its property with reserves” as a result of “FTX just isn’t licensed by MAS and operates offshore. MAS has constantly warned in regards to the risks of coping with unregulated entities.”
But it was Binance that ended up on the MAS Investor Alert Record. That was as a result of Binance, in contrast to FTX, was actively focusing on customers in Singapore with choices denominated in Singapore {dollars} and fee choices by native transmitters. MAS famous that it had obtained “a number of” complaints about Binance between January and August 2021.
MAS made Binance cease soliciting Singaporean customers and to take a number of measures to indicate its compliance, reminiscent of geo-blocking native IP addresses. It additionally referred Binance to the nation’s Business Affairs Division to analyze whether or not the change had violated the Cost Companies Act. Singaporean customers have been, nonetheless, capable of entry FTX companies.
Associated: MAS doesn’t belief retail crypto investments, mulling extra laws
The aim of the Investor Alert Record, MAS defined, is “to warn the general public of entities which may be wrongly perceived as being MAS-regulated, particularly these which solicit Singapore clients for monetary enterprise with out the requisite MAS licence.” That doesn’t imply that the checklist ought to comprise the entire “a whole bunch” of crypto exchanges worldwide, in line with MAS. “It isn’t doable to checklist all of them and no regulator on the earth has finished so,” it stated.
Hey @MAS_sg of Singapore, are you kidding me? An important lesson that you just discovered from FTX is that dealing in any cryptocurrency is “hazardous”? How about do some fundamental Due Diligence earlier than your sovereign fund @Temasek plows US$275M of your residents’ cash right into a ponzi pic.twitter.com/8Q6UYYYWlm
— Bobby Apelrod / / nicefeet.sol (@tofushit888) November 21, 2022
MAS went on to make in depth warnings in regards to the volatility of crypto property, and conceded:
“Even when a crypto change is licensed in Singapore, it will be at present solely regulated to handle money-laundering dangers, to not defend buyers. That is just like the strategy at present taken in most jurisdictions.”
MAS launched a session paper on shopper protections for crypto customers in October, nevertheless.
State-owned funding agency Temasek issued an announcement Nov. 19 saying that it had finished eight months of due diligence on FTX in 2021 with out discovering uncovering any issues. Singaporean police have issued a warning about phishing websites making an attempt to money in on the confusion surrounding the FTX collapse.
