fiu

When Binance Holdings Ltd. acrimoniously split with its Indian affiliate WazirX in 2022, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange looked near-invincible in the local market while WazirX was flailing. A government crackdown on offshore platforms has abruptly reversed the competitive dynamics. Since Indian authorities in late December began restricting access to Binance and other foreign crypto exchanges operating there without local registrations, traders have flocked to domestic rivals like WazirX. Many of them are…

India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU-Ind) has issued show-cause notices to nine offshore virtual digital assets service providers, including Binance, Bitfinex, MEXC Global and Kraken, for non-compliance under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).The anti-money laundering authority has written to the secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to block the links of the said entities that are operating illegally without complying with the provisions of the PMLA, the…

In what may turn into a massive blow for cryptocurrency sector in India, Centre's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which is under the Finance Ministry, has issued show cause notices to as many as 9 offshore cryptocurrency and virtual digital assets platforms, including Binance and Kucoin. The notifications were issued for non-compliance with anti-money laundering law.Not just the notices, FIU has even taken the next step by writing to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY) to block the URLs of…

All cryptocurrency exchanges and providers of services related to virtual digital assets (VDAs) would have to determine the true ‘beneficial owners’ of wallets where VDAs are stored, report all VDA receipts worth Rs 10 lakh or more by NGOs and non-profits, and terminate business relationship with ‘politically exposed persons’ if there are hurdles in carrying out ‘enhanced due diligence’ of such dodgy customers.The service providers must also refrain from alerting or ‘tipping off’ clients about possible suspicious…