South Africa's Markets Regulator Becomes The Latest To Crack Down On Binance

South Africa’s financial watchdog is the latest financial markets regulator to issue a public warning against the crypto exchange Binance.

What Happened: The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FCSA) issued a press release on Friday warning the public to be cautious when dealing with the Binance Group.

The regulator also declared that the entity was “not authorised to give any financial advice or render any intermediary services” in the country as per the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, 2002 (FAIS Act) in South Africa.

“If something goes wrong, you’re unlikely to get your money back and will have no recourse against anyone,” stated the FCSA.

As of this week, Binance has also been barred from operations in Singapore. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) ordered the exchange to stop providing payment services in Singapore and to cease soliciting business from the country’s residents.

MAS also placed Binance.com on its Investor Alert List. The regulator’s move comes despite its former director joining Binance Singapore as chief executive officer last week.

Why It Matters: Even as the crypto exchange faces increased regulatory scrutiny worldwide, however, it continues to grow its user base and trading volume. At the time of writing, Binance had a 24-hour trading volume over $30 billion.

The leading crypto exchange’s subsidiary Binance.US has even announced plans to go public within the next few years.

"Binance.US is just going to do what Coinbase Global Inc COIN did," declared Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.

Price Action: At press time, Binance’s native token Binance Coin BNB/USD was trading at a price of $489, gaining 0.66% over the past 24-hours.