Hassan Maishera
TL;DR
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The UK’s financial watchdog has canceled several permissions given to the local unit of crypto exchange Binance.
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The FCA said the permissions were unlikely to be required in the future.
FCA Cancels Several Permissions Granted To Binance UK
U.K.'s top financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), revealed a few hours ago that it had revoked some permissions given to Binance UK, the local unit of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange.
According to the FCA, the requests were canceled based on requests from the cryptocurrency exchange. Binance Markets Limited helped numerous permissions from the FCA for activities that it never carried out or offered in the United Kingdom. For this reason, Binance UK requested the FCA to cancel those permissions.
A spokesperson for Binance stated that;
"As these permissions were unlikely to be required in the future, Binance Markets Limited decided that it would be prudent to cancel them in line with the FCA’s recommendations to keep these updated. This decision has no impact on Binance.com, which does not own or operate any crypto services in the U.K. and is only available to U.K. consumers on a reverse solicitation basis."
The FCA wrote that;
"Following the completion of the cancellation of permissions, the firm is no longer authorized by the FCA. No other entity in the Binance Group holds any form of U.K. authorization or registration to conduct regulated business in the U.K."
This latest development comes not long after Binance moved to deregister its Cyprus unit. The cryptocurrency exchange said it wants to focus on fewer European jurisdictions as the EU's new Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation becomes active.
The cryptocurrency exchange also announced last week that it was exiting the Dutch market after failing to obtain regulatory approval in the Netherlands.
In addition to that, Binance is also facing regulatory challenges in the United States, with the SEC accusing the crypto exchange and its founder of violating securities laws.
The French authorities also revealed last week that Binance has been under investigation for aggravated money laundering for nearly a year now.
