Binance and KuCoin reach an agreement to return to operations in India
Binance and KuCoin - among the nine exchanges banned in December - became the first foreign cryptocurrency institutions to resume operations.
Two cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and KuCoin have reached initial agreements to resume operations in India by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the host country's Ministry of Finance.
The press release said that KuCoin has paid a fine of $41,000 and has started operating again. Binance has not yet been able to resume operations as it awaits a decision on the fine, which is expected to be announced after the hearing with the FIU.
But according to "revealed" a month ago by Economic Times, Binance is willing to pay a fine of up to 2 million USD to return to India. The reason for Binance's "spending" is that the cryptocurrency trading volume of Indian investors accounts for about 90%, estimated to be worth 4 billion USD.
The latest information has made Binance and KuCoin the first foreign digital asset service providers to be approved by India's anti-money laundering unit, after having their websites blocked for "no" illegal activity".
As reported, at the end of December 2023, the Indian Government issued a warning to 9 global crypto exchanges, including Binance, Kraken, KuCoin, MEXC, Huobi, Gate.io, Bittrex, Bitfinex and Bitstamp.
According to FIU regulations, all units providing trading, purchasing, and storage services for virtual assets, both domestic and foreign, must register with this agency and comply with the provisions of the FIU Law. Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Countering Financing of Terrorism (CFT) laws.
The FIU stated that the above mentioned foreign exchanges were "operating illegally without complying with regulations", thus requesting the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Communications Technology to block access to the websites of these platforms.
By January 10, 2024, most of the exchanges' applications had disappeared from the App Store in India, with only Bitstamp still being displayed. Meanwhile, the Google Play store is still available for the above platform applications.
OKX is also the name that the Indian Government put on the "warning" list and blocked the website after the 9 names mentioned above, even though their efforts to add a strict KYC process immediately afterwards could not be overcome. Legal barriers here.
At the time of writing, Kraken, Gemini and Gate.io are in negotiations with regulators to return to operations in India. Separately, OKX and Bitstamp have both submitted plans to leave the country. Foreign organizations that have not been approved by FIU are still having their websites blocked and prohibited from operating.
In recent years, cryptocurrency investors in India have tended to turn to global exchanges like Binance to "avoid" the harsh tax regime here. Since the government implemented the 30% tax in July 2022, there have been 429,000 downloads of Binance as of September.
