UK FCA Warns Consumers: Binance Crypto Exchange Is Banned From Regulated Activity

The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has prohibited Binance Markets Limited from undertaking any regulated activity in that country, according to a report.

The company currently isn’t allowed to do those things after a ruling prohibiting such without the written consent of the FCA.

The report notes that no other entity in the Binance Group currently holds any form of U.K. authorization, registration or license to conduct regulated activity.

Binance was reported under investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the IRS after an attempt by both to put a mostly unregulated market in order, PYMNTS writes.

Binance, likes its overall larger crypto market, has gone without much regulatory oversight for most of the time it’s been in the public eye, though that could change going forward.

Binance doesn’t have central regulation, though it’s incorporated in the Cayman Islands and has an island in Singapore.

“We have worked hard to build a robust compliance program that incorporates anti-money laundering principles and tools used by financial institutions to detect and address suspicious activity,” spokesperson Jessica Jung said, per the report.

The new rules come amid a forecast of surging crypto fraud, PYMNTS writes.  Max Hill, the director of public prosecutions at the Crown Prosecution Service, the top criminal investigation agency in England and the U.K., said that while those numbers were low for now, he predicted they’d increase.

Action Fraud, the nationwide English operation for fraud reporting, said there were 5,581 cryptocurrency-related scams reported in 2020. That came out to a 57 percent boost over the previous year. Meanwhile, losses to crypto-related scams came out to $156 million, reports said.

January 2021 did not see a slowdown — instead, the January 2021 numbers hit 720, which was double the number from January 2020.

According to Financial Times, one potential reason for the crypto crimes increase is the new rise in prices for currencies like bitcoin.