Is Binance banned in the UK?
Today a series of news articles appeared online claiming that Binance had been banned in the UK. Immediately my thoughts turned to withdrawing my funds. But is it actually banned?
TLDR; no
The headline from Financial Times article couldn’t be worded more clearly …
Financial watchdog bans crypto exchange Binance from UK
Financial Times, Sunday 27th June 2021
However, when you read past the click enticing headline. It’s not half as dramatic as it suggests.
The UK’s financial watchdog has ordered Binance to stop all regulated activities in Britain and imposed stringent requirements in a stinging rebuke of one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges.
OK, so it’s not banned then. It’s banned from regulated activities. That’s something entirely different. The UK financial watchdog in question is the FCA. I don’t expect any cryptocurrency assets or products I own to be regulated by the FCA anyway. That’s the point isn’t it? It’s decentralised and free from regulation. This begs the question, what is meant by ‘regulated activities’ in this case? Futures and derivative are, so may be affected. Spot/cryptocurrency is unregulated.
The exchange has until Wednesday evening to confirm it has complied with the watchdog’s demands, and removed its advertising.
Right. We’ve gone on quite a tangent here haven’t we FT? We started at ‘Binance is banned’ and now it’s ‘Binance must remove advertising’ for presumably regulated financial products by Wednesday …. or else?
Further in the article we can find an unreferenced quote.
“Binance Markets Limited is not permitted to undertake any regulated activity in the UK,” the FCA said, adding, “no other entity in the Binance Group holds any form of UK authorisation, registration or licence to conduct regulated activity in the UK.”
Binance Markets? Is that a subsidiary then? I found the answer to this myself. Yes, it’s a subsidiary. It’s a London based company. Binance are in the process of developing and launching Binance UK. By operating out of London, the FCA will have to give this new arm of Binance the nod. At the moment the Binance UK website is still a placeholder ‘coming soon’ page. https://www.binance.co.uk/
The unreferenced quote above, just required a quick Google search to find its source. It is taken from an announcement by the FCA which can be found here, and is almost certainly the source material to back this article. The FCA’s statement relating to Binance in its entirety reads…
Binance Markets Limited is not permitted to undertake any regulated activity in the UK. This firm is part of a wider Group (Binance Group). Due to the imposition of requirements by the FCA, Binance Markets Limited is not currently permitted to undertake any regulated activities without the prior written consent of the FCA. No other entity in the Binance Group holds any form of UK authorisation, registration or licence to conduct regulated activity in the UK. The Binance Group appear to be offering UK customers a range of products and services via a website, Binance.com.
Reading this statement, to me it seems this is entirely an issue with the London based subsidiary Binance Markets, which was advertised on binance.com. The statement around Binance Group, is not news. I am aware Binance is not regulated by any UK entity, it is based in the Cayman Islands and I have weighed up the risks and understand that my crypto assets have no insurance, no FSCS protection and no FCA regulation. I knew that before I made my first deposit.
The Financial Times article actually confirms this a little further on.
the FCA has restricted Binance from offering services in the UK, British citizens can still access Binance’s services in other jurisdictions.
Yes, I can still access services via the app, or the website which are based outside of the UK.
Typically, when news breaks, other news companies just copy … and we now have a wave of these articles, which all relate to the same thing.
Binance Isn’t Allowed to be Operating in the UK, Watchdog Warns
Coindesk, Sunday 27th June 2021
Financial watchdog orders crypto exchange Binance to stop regulated activities in UK
Reuters, Sunday 27th June 2021
U.K. Financial Regulator Bars Crypto Exchange Binance
Bloomberg, Sunday 27th June 2021
Update : Tweets from Binance confirm the above
