Binance Terminates Services in Malaysia, South Korea

In a push to comply with local regulators, Binance is restricting its services in Malaysia and South Korea. The exchange is terminating almost all the local services in the two countries, it announced on Friday.

Both in Malaysia and South Korea, the cryptocurrency has stopped offering trading with local fiats and also terminated taking deposits with Malaysian ringgit and the Korean won. 

Furthermore, it has restricted P2P merchant applications. While Binance P2P is removing MYR trading pairs on Friday at 13:00 UTC, the KRW pairs have already been removed at 11:00 UTC.

“Our aim is to create a sustainable ecosystem around blockchain technology and digital assets,” the crypto exchange noted in the official announcement.

“Binance welcomes developments to our industry’s regulatory framework as they pose opportunities for the market players to have greater collaboration with the regulators. We are committed to working constructively in policy-making that seeks to benefit every user.”

Regulators against Binance

The services were removed after Binance received heavy regulatory criticisms, as well as actions, in multiple jurisdictions.

Binance’s exit from Malaysia followed after the Securities Commission Malaysia ordered the exchange to close all of its business in the country at the end of last month, giving it an ultimatum of 14 days. The Malaysian regulator initially put Binance on a blacklist in July 2020, but the exchange continued its operations despite that.

Though the South Korean regulator did not officially point fingers at Binance, the closure of its business came just ahead of the strict mandatory banking rules to be imposed on all local exchanges at the end of this year.

Binance is the largest spot and crypto derivatives exchange in terms of volumes. However, it has terminated derivatives offering in Hong Kong, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, and has plans to stop such services across Europe. It also terminated stock tokens offering amid regulatory backlash.

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