Breaking: Singapore Issues Crypto License to Two New Crypto Exchanges

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the chief financial regulator in the country issued crypto licenses to DBS Bank’s brokerage arm DBS Vickers and Australian exchange Independent Reserve. The license would allow the two firms to offer crypto brokerage services to native customers.

Australian exchange Independent Reserve became the first from the country to offer its services to retail and institutional investors in Singapore.

DBVS would support asset managers and financial giants to settle their crypto payments via DBS Digital Exchange (DDEx). Both DBS and Independent Reserve obtained in-principle approval from MAS to offer crypto token services back in August this year.

“We have seen robust demand from our clients since DDEx was launched in December last year (2020). We expect to double the number of participants on DDEx to 1,000, as well as to grow this by 20 percent to 30 percent annually over the next three years as digital tokens and cryptocurrency trading gain greater adoption.”

“We believe that DBSV’s license… could add to DDEx’s volumes in the coming months and accelerate growth momentum for DBS’ digital asset ecosystem,” said Eng-Kwok Seat Moey, Head of Capital Markets at DBS.”

The two new crypto licenses would open the Singapore crypto market to new players making way for healthy competition and also establish Singapore as the growing crypto hub.

Singapore Growing as a Crypto Hub

Singapore is increasingly becoming a growing choice of crypto service providers despite mainstream crypto platforms such as Binance still facing compliance issues. Binance earlier this week announced the closure of spot trading and fiat onboarding services via Binance.com in the wake of its website being put on Investor Alert List.

However, it is important to note that Binance has only closed services via a global platform, a sister company of the crypto exchange called Binance Singapore has applied for the crypto license and currently working with jn-principle approval from the MAS.