by Ravi Philemon
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has answered questions by the public asking if ‘banning’ Binance.com and placing it on the Investor Alert List (IAL) has led Singapore users to invest through FTX.com.
MAS which is chaired by Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said that Binance.com was not banned from operating in Singapore.
As Binance.com did not have the requisite licence to solicit customers here, it had to stop providing payment services in Singapore and also cease soliciting business from Singapore residents.
MAS also placed Binance.com on its IAL in September last year.
“Not Be Meaningful” To List FTX On IAL, MAS
MAS reasoned that it cannot list all unlicensed entities on the IAL and that it cannot prevent Singapore users from directly accessing overseas service providers.
It said, “It would not be meaningful for MAS to list all unlicensed entities on the IAL. MAS did not have cause to list FTX on the same basis as Binance.”
The statement by MAS is unsatisfactory. It should not push away responsibility for not providing proper guidance to Singapore-based users.
For example, although MAS says that Binance.com was not banned, that was how newspapers were reporting it.
The Business Times headlined an article in September last year as “MAS bans Binance.com from unlicensed payment services, red flags it with Investor Alert List”.
With reports such as this coming from mainstream newspapers, would it not be reasonable to think that MAS had actually “banned” Binance.com? Would it not be reasonable for users here to look for another cryptocurrency exchange – especially an exchange which is large, not on the IAL and also has the “credibility” of being backed by Temasek Holdings?
As an example, one Singapore-based media dedicated to documenting the developments in the blockchain space, headlined their articles at the exit of Binance.com from Singapore as. “Moving Your Crypto Assets From Binance? Here’s A Guide To FTX For Singaporeans”.
Ministers and Government agencies should be more accountable and transparent to Singaporeans, and should not avoid answering legitimate questions properly by saying that it is “not meaningful”.
Loss Of Taxpayers’ Money At The Time When GST Is Hiked
Singapore-based users have lost tens of thousands and millions of dollars in the failed cryptocurrency firm.
Temasek Holdings has lost money and said that it will write down S$377 million of its investment in FTX. It justified the writing down by saying, the investment represented just 0.09% of the firm’s net portfolio.
Even though Temasek’s investment in FTX is 0.09 per cent of its net portfolio, it is still S$377 million, and S$377 million is not only a large sum of money, but it is also the taxpayers’ money.
The loss of the taxpayers’ money comes at a time when the burden of taxpayers is being increased with the announcement of the hike of the Goods and Service Tax to 9 per cent.
In my opinion, both MAS and Temasek have failed to better protect Singaporeans. Their justifications and explanations are just excuses to mask their failures.
This post was first published on Mr Ravi Philemon’s Facebook page. Mr Philemon is the Secretary-General of Red Dot United, a political party in Singapore.
