- 19 September 2022
- Posted by: Cryptovalues
- Category: Central Banks, Cryptovalues News, World News
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is seeking information from cryptocurrency companies ahead of a planned regulatory review. It appears to have forwarded a questionnaire to various applicants and holders of its digital payments licence.
The aim is to assess the interconnectedness and financial soundness of cryptocurrency companies under its jurisdiction. Accordingly, it is trying to obtain rather specific information on their activities and holdings, which concern the main tokens owned by the firms and the main lending counterparties as well as the different amounts lent and the main tokens pointed through decentralised finance protocols.
To better understand the risks associated with starting a cryptocurrency exchange, the MAS is also requesting information from exchanges to understand what processes need to be undertaken to go live. So far, the regulator has granted just over 10 permits out of nearly 200 applicants.
The moves come ahead of a planned review of the cryptocurrency regulatory regime in Singapore, with MAS director-general Ravi Menon saying:
“Licensees and applicants are required to notify MAS of any event that materially impedes or impairs the operations of the entity, including any matter that may affect its solvency or ability to meet its financial, statutory, contractual or other obligations.”
The licence to trade cryptocurrencies was already obtained last year by the country’s largest financial institution, DBS Bank, by a decision of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, in order to offer institutional and wealthy clients access to its DBS Digital Exchange.
DBS will thus be able to expand its cryptocurrency services to wealthier clients in Asia, including private banks, accredited investors, as well as other exchanges and funds. At the moment, 1,000 customers (institutional clients who entered at the explicit invitation of the bank) have benefited from this opportunity, but the aim is to reach another 300,000 wealthy clients of the bank throughout Asia.
The willingness of such a major bank to open up to the crypto industry, explains CEO Piyush Gupta, who said that the bank plans to grow its cryptocurrency and digital asset business, despite the bear market, bearing in mind that about $1 billion went out of DBS’s accounts to crypto exchanges before they opened their own exchange, and this indeed seems a very good reason behind the bank’s decision to launch one.
Note that Singapore is among the most crypto friendly countries according to Coincub and now ranks fourth after being first in the last quarter of 2021.
