Coinbase enters Singapore after obtaining license
Coinbase has entered the Singaporean market as it has received approval from central bank to offer its crypto services in the city-state.
The largest crypto exchange in the US has received a so-called approval in principle, which the central bank rolled out last year for crypto companies.
The approval will allow crypto exchanges like Coinbase to offer services that individuals and institutions can use. Nevertheless, the central bank will regulate them under its Payment Services Act.
Coinbase has said this has been a “significant milestone”. It further added that the company currently has nearly 100 employees and has built a robust presence in the Southeast Asian state. The largest number of hires from Singapore are product engineers, according to Coinbase.
“We see Singapore as a strategic market and a global hub for Web3 innovation,” said Hassan Ahmed, Coinbase’s regional director for Southeast Asia.
Coinbase is among the only 17 crypto firms to receive in-principle approvals and licenses from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) following an extensive due diligence process that is still ongoing. There were about 180 crypto companies that applied for a crypto payment license to MAS in 2020 under a new regime.
Competitors Crypto.com and DBS Vickers – the brokerage house run by Singapore’s largest bank, DBS – have also established operations in Singapore in addition to Coinbase.
Although Singapore has become welcoming to external digital asset services-related firms, local crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) began winding down in June after it was unable to meet hundreds of millions of dollars in liabilities.
Still, Singapore’s positive step toward opening up to crypto firms has been attracting firms from China, India and elsewhere in recent years, making it an important center in Asia.
In the latest development, Coinbase announced the expansion of its services in Australia to make access to the crypto-economy easier and safer, introducing three services to its Australian customers, Blockchain.News reported.
The digital currency exchangewhich first entered the Australian market in 2016, said it would introduce a PayID feature to its Australian users.
The announcement was revealed in a published blog post, “First, we’re introducing PayID as a way for Australians to top up their Coinbase accounts using direct Australian dollar transfers.” Coinbase said in the announcement.”
The crypto exchange’s cloud protocol has also partnered with decentralized oracle network Chainlink Labs to launch an NFT floor price feed service.
The partnership will introduce NFT’s lowest price source into the Coinbase cloud service, allowing developers to access real-time NFT prices to build applications such as NFT lending marketplaces, such as NFT indices.
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