UK financial regulator blocks company from approving Binance marketing

Britain’s financial regulator this week said it was stopping peer-to-peer platform rebuildingsociety.com from approving financial promotions for Binance and other crypto asset firms, days after Binance announced it had partnered with the company.

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which is unregulated in Britain, in a blog post on Sunday said it had launched a new domain for UK users and that rebuildingsociety.com would be approving its marketing and communications materials.

A Binance spokesperson via email on Tuesday said that the company had invested “an enormous amount of time and resources” in ensuring that it is compliant with the Financial Conduct Authority’s rules.

The FCA recently introduced new rules around cryptoasset promotions, which came into effect on Oct. 8.

“We shared our agreement with Rebuildingsociety.com with the FCA on Oct. 2, almost a full week before the requirements of the updated Financial Promotions Regime came into effect,” the Binance spokesperson said.

Rebuildingsociety.com said in a blog that it had gone “above and beyond” the requirements to protect consumers when approving financial promotions for crypto asset companies and had applied for a waiver to allow it more time to comply with the new FCA rules. The waiver request was also rejected on Tuesday, the company’s blog said.

Rebuildingsociety.com said it planned to appeal the FCA’s restrictions on the company and its decision to reject the waiver request.

The FCA in its decision notice on Tuesday said unregistered cryptoasset firms must not promote cryptoassets to UK consumers unless they have an authorised company to approve the promotions.

The watchdog, which has long warned investors that they should be ready to lose all of their investments in cryptoassets, said rebuildingsociety.com can appeal the decision.

Under the FCA’s rules, a firm it has authorised can approve promotions of companies it does not regulate, a system that is being tightened from February by the watchdog.

From next month, regulated firms that want to approve marketing of non-regulated firms must begin applying to the FCA for permission by demonstrating that they have the necessary skills and expertise to understand the products being sold.

The FCA in June 2021 said Binance was not permitted to undertake any regulated activity in Britain.