- Binance Markets Limited has withdrawn its UK operational license
- The UK wing of the exchange has decided not to renew its current licenses having never fully launched
- Binance is still accessible to UK users, although UK users are not protected
Binance has decided to shelve its UK operation once and for all after choosing not to renew its license. Binance.UK was supposed to be the UK’s regulated wing of the Binance empire but it never got off the ground after regulators denied it crucial operational licences, leaving the ones it did have largely useless. It has now decided to let these licenses lapse and abort its UK efforts just days after it quit the Netherlands after having its application rejected.
Binance Tried to Acquire Its Way In
Binance has been in a tussle with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for a good few years dating back to 2020 and its attempts to enter the UK market via Binance Markets Limited, an already licensed entity. Binance bought the entity in June of that year and planned to turn it into Binance.UK, only for the FCA to prevent its launch a year later, claiming that it was “not capable of being effectively supervised”. This led to claims in the media that Binance had been “banned in the UK” which simply wasn’t true, although it did spell the beginning of the end for Binance.UK.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced in December 2021 that the company was “fully re-engaged” in the UK and was “making a number of very substantial changes in organizational structures, product offerings, our internal processes, and the way we work with regulators”, and hoped to secure a license in 2022. However, the FCA warned last year that many crypto firms were still falling short of the standards needed to obtain a license, and it seems Binance was among them.
Binance.UK Signs Off With a Whimper
Having never got off the ground, and, as Binance Markets Limited told Cointelegraph, only held permissions for activities that it “never carried out or offered in the UK,” the company asked the FCA to withdraw its registration status on May 30 rather than update its existing licenses.
Binance’s issues in the UK have led to GBP withdrawals being suspended twice since they were introduced in 2021, and there is currently no way for British Binance users to withdraw cash to their bank accounts after Skrill ditched the company last year. With FCA registration now off the table and Binance coming under huge regulatory pressures worldwide, this now seems like a distant dream rather than a basic expectation for users.
