The Financial Authority of Singapore (MAS), the nation’s central financial institution, released an announcement on Nov. 21 to deal with “some questions and misconceptions which have arisen within the wake of the FTX.com (FTX) debacle.”
The primary level MAS wished to make was that it couldn’t shield native customers from the fallout from FTX collapse “equivalent to by ringfencing their belongings or making certain that FTX backed its belongings with reserves” as a result of “FTX shouldn’t be licensed by MAS and operates offshore. MAS has persistently 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, not like 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 take a number of measures to indicate its compliance, equivalent to geo-blocking native IP addresses. It additionally referred Binance to the nation’s Industrial Affairs Division to research whether or not the change had violated the Fee Providers Act. Singaporean customers have been, nonetheless, capable of entry FTX companies.
Associated: MAS doesn’t belief retail crypto investments, mulling extra rules
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 prospects for monetary enterprise with out the requisite MAS licence.” That doesn’t imply that the record ought to include the entire “a whole lot” of crypto exchanges worldwide, in accordance with MAS. “It isn’t doable to record all of them and no regulator on this planet has accomplished so,” it mentioned.
Hey @MAS_sg of Singapore, are you kidding me? Crucial lesson that you simply realized from FTX is that dealing in any cryptocurrency is “hazardous”? How about do some primary 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 belongings, and conceded:
“Even when a crypto change is licensed in Singapore, it could be at the moment solely regulated to deal with money-laundering dangers, to not shield buyers. That is just like the strategy at the moment taken in most jurisdictions.”
MAS released a session paper on client protections for crypto customers in October, nevertheless.
State-owned funding agency Temasek issued an announcement on Nov. 19 saying that it had accomplished eight months of due diligence on FTX in 2021 with out discovering uncovering any issues. Singaporean police have issued a warning about phishing websites attempting to money in on the confusion surrounding the FTX collapse.