Major global cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance and OKX have announced that they are striving to comply with the United Kingdom’s new financial promotion regulations.
On October 8, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of the United Kingdom enacted the country’s new Financial Promotions (FinProm) Regime for cryptocurrency firms to ensure equitable, clean, and transparent cryptocurrency promotions.
Binance announced on October 6 that it has launched a new domain for users in the United Kingdom and partnered with local peer-to-peer lending platform Rebuildingsociety.
Following the compliance update, Binance’s retail users in the United Kingdom will be redirected to a localized domain on October 8, which will only display Binance products and services permitted by U.K. regulations. These products will include spot and margin trading, Binance Pay, a marketplace for nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and loans.
However, according to the new FCA regulations, Binance will discontinue offering gift cards, referral incentives, gift cards, academy, and research.
The changes will only apply to retail users in the United Kingdom and will not affect institutional and professional investors exempt under the new FinProm rules.
OKX also issued a statement regarding FinProm compliance on October 6. The exchange stated that it has reduced the number of tokens it offers to around 40 and added prominent risk warnings to its interface.
One such warning appears at the top of the OKX homepage, urging investors to take a few moments to learn more about the dangers associated with crypto investments. This notice reads:
“Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong.”
In addition, OKX has launched a U.K.-specific account on X (previously Twitter). The company has committed to mentioning the products and services that will comply with new U.K. regulations on its social media page.
Bitcoin payment service MoonPay is another industry company that has been implementing the new FinProm regulations. According to MoonPay’s deputy general counsel, Matt Sullivan, operating a global business is one of the most significant obstacles to ensuring compliance with the rules.
“The difficulty lies in ensuring compliance with all of these new requirements in the United Kingdom while operating globally,” Sullivan told Cointelegraph, adding:
“Ensuring compliance with the FinProm rules requires localised product updates, implementation of new processes and policies, as well as education across the company. […] There may be a bit of a ‘settling in’ period and that initial views as to the application of certain rules may evolve over time.”
Some crypto firms need help to comply with the United Kingdom’s new promotion regulations. According to official FCA statements released on October 8, prominent cryptocurrency exchanges such as KuCoin and HTX (formerly Huobi) may have promoted their services without authorization. The firms were among 143 “non-authorized firms” not permitted to operate in the United Kingdom.
One hundred forty-three new entities, including prominent exchanges such as Huobi-owned HTX and KuCoin, were added to the warning list. The warning list only states, “You should avoid doing business with this company.”
