World’s largest crypto exchange Binance is back with a bang in India, as its website and app go live following nearly seven months of ban for not registering with the Financial Intelligence Unit in India (FIU-IND).
The exchange announced the same on August 15, adding that this marks its 19th global regulatory milestone and its commitment to compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) standards in India as well as any other jurisdiction it operates in.
Richard Teng, CEO of Binance, said, “Our registration with the FIU-IND marks an important milestone in Binance’s journey. Recognizing the vitality and potential of the Indian VDA market, this alignment with Indian regulations allows us to tailor our services to the needs of Indian users. It is a privilege to extend the reach of our cutting-edge platform to this thriving market, supporting India’s continued VDA evolution.”
Binance in its statement highlighted that “India leads the world in grassroots crypto adoption, according to Chainalysis’ 2023 Global Crypto Adoption Index.”
“The country ranked in the top five by estimated transaction volume across centralized and decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, and token smart contracts. This highlights the vibrancy and massive potential of the Indian market,” it said.
On June 19, FIU-IND had imposed a penalty of Rs 18.82 crore on Binance for not complying with local anti-money laundering laws. The exchange’s statement doesn’t clarify if the fine has been settled.
Earlier, rival KuCoin got fully registered and became operational after paying a penalty fee of Rs 34.5 lakh. Among the offshore exchanges, KuCoin re-entered India in March, while OKX decided to discontinue its services in India from April 30.
Blocking offshore exchanges
In December 2023, around nine offshore exchanges including KuCoin, Binance, OKX, Houbi among others were found to be not registered under FIU-IND and weren’t aligned with the provisions of the PMLA, 2002.
Following this, the government had ordered to block the URLs of these exchanges in India in January.
Even their apps were delisted from the Apple and Google’s app stores.
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