India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU IND) has issued a notice deeming nine major offshore cryptocurrency exchanges “illegal”. The agency, which is in charge of regulating all financial transactions in the world’s fifth-largest economy, cited a failure to comply with local Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Financing of Terrorism (CFT) regulations as the reason for the decision.
As a result of the decision, all nine exchanges included in the notice will have their URLs blocked in the country, a move that could severely affect their Indian user base. The range of the notice includes Binance, KuCoin, Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Bittrex, Bitstamp, MEXC Global, and Bitfinex.
Can Foreign Crypto Exchanges Operate in India?
The decision to block access to the nine exchanges comes after amendments were made in March 2023 to India’s Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA). As a result of the amendments,…
