Binance gets 3.3 million-euro fine for non-registration

This week, Dutch regulators announced that they had slapped Binance — the world's largest exchange by trading volume, with a hefty 3.3 million-euro penalty for failing to get approvals to operate the exchange legally in the Netherlands.

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In April of this year, a fine was levied by the central bank of the Netherlands DNB, after an investigation into the company's lack of registration. The country made it mandatory to register until December 2021 when companies are required to register with the DNB, according to the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Prevention Act.

The bank said that these violations were very serious and that DNB considers these violations to be very serious.

The fine was objected to by the exchange last month.

The fine was imposed because Binance offered services in the Netherlands without a legally required registration with DNB. The bank said that it had reduced its fine by 5% due to the fact that it has been relatively transparent about its business operations and is currently submitting a registration application with the Dutch regulators.

The bank pointed out that Binance hasn't had to incur other costs in connection with ongoing supervision by DNB because it hasn't paid any levies to DNB and has enjoyed a competitive advantage because of the fact that it has $13.7 billion in global daily trading volume.

The company did not submit any suspicious or unusual transactions to the Dutch government, as required by law because of the lack of registration. The regulator said that it was at risk of overlooking critical financial transactions related to money-laundering, terror financing, or other suspicious activity. In August 2021, DNB warned the public that Binance was not licensed to operate in the Netherlands.

Without this registration obligation in place, it is less easy to monitor if the risk of criminal money flows is sufficiently counteracted, the regulator said.