ASIC reviews Binance Australia Derivatives over account closures
Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is reviewing Binance Australia Derivatives a day after its sent notifications of account closures to users.
Binance Australia Derivatives delivered an unexpected notice to a subset of customers on February 23, informing them that their accounts will be closed immediately owing to the incorrect categorization of certain users as “wholesale clients.”
The following day, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) declared it will launch a “targeted assessment” of Binance's local derivatives business in reaction to the avalanche of replies from social media users.
The assessment of Binance Australia Derivatives will cover the company's “classification of retail and wholesale customers,” according to a statement issued by a regulator representative on February 24.
The spokesman continued:
“It has not yet reported these matters to ASIC in accordance with its obligations under its Australian financial services license.”
But, the regulator “is aware of Binance's social media postings,” which were made immediately after consumers started sharing images of the alerts on Twitter, according to a spokeswoman.
Binance resorted to social media to explain the matter, stating that it has canceled derivatives contracts and accounts for customers they had wrongly categorized as “wholesale clients.” Nowadays, only wholesale investors have access to the site.
A few hours after its first tweets, Binance said that 500 people were impacted by the cleanup.
A spokeswoman for Binance reaffirmed the exchange's “commitment” to complying with Australian legislation.
Changpeng CZ Zhao, co-founder, and chief executive officer of Binance, stated that all users would be paid for any losses and to disregard the FUD. In addition, he said that the business is investigating the issue to see if reopening futures in Australia would be a possibility in the future.
Now, the cryptocurrency exchange is the biggest in the world, and it has been quite transparent about its attempts to comply with local legal standards.
