Independent Reserve, Australia's cryptocurrency exchange, has received an"in-principle approval" under the Payment Services Act from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Bloomberg reports. Thus, the Sydney-based trading platform became one of the first crypto exchanges to obtain such an approval.
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"To be one of the first cryptocurrency exchanges to be notified by MAS of our in-principle licensing approval is a reflection of the robustness of the policies, procedures and risk management systems that we have put in place to guide our day-to-day operations," said Adrian Przelozny, Independent Reserve CEO.
Singapore’s Senior Minister and Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, says that approximately 170 applicants have already applied to provide crypto-related services since the commencement of the Payment Services Act in January last year.
However, 30 applications have been withdrawn, two had been rejected and about 90 companies are offering their services under an exemption from holding a license, Tharman noted.
In June, the Banque de France (BdF) announced the completion of a wholesale cross-border payment and settlement experiment using central bank digital currency (CBDC) with the MAS. BdF says the experiment was conducted on JPMorgan's blockchain network called Onyx and simulated cross-border transactions with Singapore Dollar (SGD) CBDC and €uro (EUR) CBDC.
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