By Alicia Maher
The cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, announced that it has received regulatory approval to operate in Singapore. The approval was given by the country’s Monetary Authority. This preliminary approval comes after the approval-in-principle.
Securing the Approval
Coinbase can now provide regulated virtual payment assets services and products. The latest approval has made Coinbase one of the few exchanges to complete the MAS licensing process. It is typically a long and rigorous process for firms to embark on.
MAS’s top fintech officer, Sopnendu Mohanty, had an interview with Financial Times. Mohanty said the regulator enforced the long licensing process against bad behavior. He said it was meant to forestall bad practices rampant within the crypto space.
Coinbase has been expanding its operations in Singapore. It launched a tech hub in the place and increased its efforts to employ web 3 experts there.
The venture arm of Coinbase equally invested in over 15 web 3 startups in the country. The plan for those investments is to aid crypto and web 3 adoption further.
Apart from announcing the regulatory approval, the firm also gave information about its co-founder. It said Brian Armstrong, who is also the CEO, would attend a stage event in Singapore. He will be appearing side-by-side with the Chief Fintech Officer of the Monetary Authority.
Singapore’s Lead
The statement added that the firm is excited to verify that the CEO will take the stage at the Fintech Festival. He will also be at a fireside chat alongside Sopnendu Mohanty.
Singapore has recently grown into a global financial hub. It houses a large number of asset managers, fintech firms, insurance, and banks.
The growing number of fintech firms have equally shown their desire to explore crypto. They plan to invest and buy stakes in some of the industry’s virtual assets.
Crypto.com first had approval in-principle in Singapore because MAS gave it to Coinbase. The country leads most Asia-Pacific nations in terms of crypto regulations.
Regulating the crypto space has been the main focus across the globe. Against an outright ban, countries would rather get the benefits accruing to crypto transactions.
The market has, however, suffered setbacks with interest rate adjustments around the world. The economic fallout from stock markets dragged the crypto sector down along with it. But crypto might disconnect from the stock market in the future, according to analysts.