Breaking: South African Financial Watchdog Issues Warning Against Binance Group

By Prashant Jha
Updated October 8, 2024
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao

The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), the South African financial watchdog has joined the long list of regulators to issue a warning against the Binance crypto exchange. In a public notice dated September 3, the FSCA called for caution among traders when dealing with the crypto entity as it has not been authorized by them to offer any services.

The official notice read,

The FSCA received information that BINANCE GROUP, an international company situated in the Seychelles which has a telegram group that members of the South African public can join to gain access to their cryptocurrency exchange platform. The FSCA would like to caution that in addition to this entity not being authorized to provide any financial services or business, crypto-related investments are currently not regulated by the FSCA or any other body in South Africa. As a result, if something goes wrong, you’re unlikely to get your money back and will have no recourse against anyone.

The warning from FSCA comes just a day after Singapore’s regulatory watchdog MAS put Binance.com on the investor alert list. Now more than a dozen countries have issued some form of regulatory warning against the world’s leading crypto exchange. It all started with Japan’s FSA and was later joined on by the likes of Thailand, the UK, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Italy, and few others.

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Can Binance Mend its Way With Regulators?

Binance has been at the receiving end of regulatory woes for the past quarter now that seems to see no end. However, the world’s top crypto exchange by trading volume is doing its part to mend its way with regulators. It has discontinued its derivatives services across Europe, Hong Kong, and South Korea, scrapped stock token offerings altogether, and even promised to build local headquarters wherever it operates.

The CEO of the firm has maintained that they are actively working with regulators to offer compliant products. The crypto exchange has also hired a number of former government and regulatory executives in key positions to help them with their regulatory troubles.

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Prashant Jha
An engineering graduate, Prashant focuses on UK and Indian markets. As a crypto-journalist, his interests lie in blockchain technology adoption across emerging economies.
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