Richard Teng, the new CEO of Binance, world’s top crypto platform has stressed on the importance of regulatory compliance for Binance’s future success. This is coming up months after its former Chief Executive pleaded guilty to violating US anti-money laundering laws and paid $4.3 billion in settlement charges.
In Nigeria, Binance has been under the Nigerian government’s scrutiny, with the Central Bank of Nigeria blaming the organisation for the naira’s devaluation against the dollar. This led security authorities to detain two of its employees, Tigran Gambrayan who is in charge of Financial Crimes Compliance and Nadeem Anjarwalla, Binance African Regional Manager.
Binance had stopped all its offerings in Nigeria, particularly trades that involved the naira and the USDT stablecoin. It claimed that Nigeria was “not yet” one of its top markets, though it holds “extraordinary potential and we hope to continue to invest there.”
Teng in an interview said he aims to keep Binance as a “user-focused, user-first organisation” that helped propel its success.
We want to make sure that compliance is, also becomes, a competitive advantage for Binance, Teng said.
He said Binance had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on compliance and was working very closely with regulators, including putting into place at their insistence a global board of directors with three independent directors.
“Our board of directors will become our stewards guiding us in terms of direction to go, making sure that we adopt the best practices,” he said.
In his recent tweet, he promised to sustain a more responsible growth of cryptocurrency trading in Nigeria with facts and numbers and promised to work with the authorities to facilitate the quick release of their colleagues and help the investigation going forward.
Mr. Tigran Gambaryan was charged with five counts of money laundering accusations brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC)and four counts of tax evasion charges by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS)which he rejected and has since be remanded in the Kuje Correctional Prison, Abuja. While Mr Nadeem Anjarwalla is still at large.
