- Coinbase secures operational license from Singapore’s central bank, the MAS.
- The IPA allows individuals and institutions to use digital payment token services.
- MAS has also granted licenses to Crypto.com and DBS Vickers.
Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the US by trading volume, has secured a license to operate in Singapore. After gaining a license from Singapore’s central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the crypto exchange can now offer payment services in the island country.
As per the firm’s press release, the in-principle approval (IPA) allows individuals and institutions to use digital payment token services as the firms are controlled by MAS under its Payment Services Act.
Hassan Ahmed, Coinbase’s regional director for Southeast Asia, commented:
We see Singapore as a strategic market and a global hub for Web3 innovation.
It is worth mentioning that around 180 crypto firms had applied for a crypto payments license in Singapore in 2020. MAS has granted 17 in-principle approvals and licenses for digital payment tokens platforms under the Payment Services Act.
Apart from Coinbase, Crypto.com and DBS Vickers, which is the brokerage run by Singapore’s largest bank DBS, have also received licenses. Note that it was only recently that DBS allowed its new members to access its exclusive cryptocurrency trading services.
The decision to approve licenses of crypto firms seems highly crucial amid the recent warnings by the Singaporean government that sternly claimed that ‘not all crypto-related operations are regulated in the nation’.
This move proves to be a game-changer for Coinbase as it continues to steadily invest in Singapore. In 2021, the firm announced that Singapore will be one of its tech development centers. Singapore continues to be the hub for Coinbase’s business focused on institutional investors in the Asia-Pacific region.
Coinbase further called the feat of gaining an in-principle approval from MAS ‘an important step’ in launching a full range of retail, institutional, and ecosystem products.
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