Binance eyes more Asia licences as crypto adoption grows, says co-CEO
The cryptocurrency exchange's co-CEO Richard Teng believes blockchain will be the future of financial services, but says wider adoption will depend on greater regulatory clarity and increased institutional participation.
Binance co-CEO Richard Teng believes blockchain “is going to be the future of financial services”, but that wider adoption will depend on greater regulatory clarity and increased institutional participation.
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SINGAPORE: Cryptocurrency exchange Binance is looking to secure more licences in Asia as it steps up its expansion across the region, said co-CEO Richard Teng on Thursday (Jul 9).
The world's largest crypto trading platform expects to announce more regulatory approvals and partnerships in Asia this year, building on its presence in markets including Japan and India.
Most recently, it expanded into the Philippines through a partnership with fintech firm BlockShoals Technologies.
“We're going to announce a few more throughout the course of this year as we secure those licences,” Teng told CNA on the sidelines of the Reuters NEXT Asia leadership summit in Singapore.
The Singaporean, a former chief regulatory officer of the Singapore Exchange, said Binance remains "very bullish" on Asia Pacific, citing strong crypto adoption across the region and growing enthusiasm for digital assets.
EU LICENSING SETBACK
He also said that Binance remains committed to operating in the European Union despite withdrawing its Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) licence application in Greece last month.
Under MiCA, crypto firms must obtain a licence from a regulator in an EU member state, which can then be used as a passport to operate across the bloc. Firms were required to secure a MiCA licence by this month to continue operating in the EU.
Teng said Binance remains in close talks with European regulators, describing the setback as a result of delays in the approval process rather than a shift in strategy.
“We are still working very closely with the regulators in the EU. We are very supportive of the EU agenda and MiCA itself. It's very unfortunate,” he said.
“We were always given the impression that we have a fully compliant application … Then there was a delay. But we couldn't delay much further because there's a timeline, and we needed to be responsible to our users in the EU, which is why we withdrew.”
COMPLIANCE PUSH
In the interview, Teng also defended Binance's compliance record, saying it has invested heavily in strengthening its governance framework after past regulatory breaches.
Around a quarter of Binance's global workforce is now dedicated to compliance, he said.
“We spend more than US$300 million a year on compliance costs, to make sure that our compliance standards are very, very, very strong and robust.”
Teng said Binance publishes proof of reserves to show customer assets are fully backed, and maintains a Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) to compensate users in the event of a security breach, measures he said go beyond what many regulators require.
“We believe a lot in customer protection,” he said. “So actually, we go beyond what many regulators prescribe to protect our users.”
Since Binance was founded in 2017, the cryptocurrency industry has evolved rapidly.
“A lot of times, institutions when they start growing, they do make mistakes,” said Teng, who joined the company in August 2021 as CEO of Binance Singapore.
“What is more important is that we acknowledge those mistakes, invest greatly to correct them, and then become better and stronger.”
When Binance was started, only about 6 million people worldwide had exposure to cryptocurrencies. Today, that number has grown to nearly 740 million, about half of whom are Binance users, said Teng.
“When we first started off, the landscape was totally different. The rules were unclear,” he added.
“The rules have developed quite a fair bit in the last two to three years … so we're in a different space.”
BLOCKCHAIN'S FUTURE GROWTH
Teng, who was once the director of corporate finance at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, believes blockchain “is going to be the future of financial services”, but that wider adoption will depend on greater regulatory clarity and increased institutional participation.
“You need different types of investors with different risk appetite, horizon, duration for it to be a much healthier marketplace, which we are seeing now, and is now becoming part of global infrastructure and landscape,” he noted.
Binance currently has 323 million users globally and aims to grow that figure to 3 billion by 2030.
Teng expects more traditional financial assets to be tokenised and traded on blockchain networks in the coming years.
“We are very excited that as more and more assets come on chain, the universe becomes much bigger for us in terms of offering products to our users,” he said.
