India has stepped up action against crypto exchanges operating without local registration in the country. According to Bloomberg report, Apple has been asked to remove such platform apps from its App Store, which also includes Binance.
Bitfinex, HTX and Kucoin are among the eight exchanges whose apps are no longer available on the app store in India. According to information received by Bloomberg quoting sources, these apps were removed on the instructions of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
India increased strictness on crypto exchanges
This step taken on foreign crypto platforms like Binance shows that India is increasing its strictness against such platforms, which started on December 28 when the authorities arrested nine exchanges raising doubts over their functioning. Was notified. Indian crypto traders, out of fear of losing their money, have already started transferring their money to local exchanges operating under the rules and regulations of the country.
A source told Bloomberg that Indian authorities have also asked Alphabet to immediately remove such apps from Google. In fact, the crypto apps which have been removed from Apple’s App Store were present in Google’s App Store till 2 pm on Wednesday. Comment was sought from Apple, Google and India’s Technology Ministry, but no comment has been received yet.
FIU had issued notice to 9 offshore
India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) on December 28 issued so-called non-compliance show cause notices to nine offshore platforms and also asked the Information Ministry to block their URLs. At that time the FIU had said that the exchanges were operating illegally in India without following anti-money laundering laws. Their websites are still working in India.
Of the exchanges included in this announcement, Bitstamp was the only one which was still available for download in the local app store on Wednesday. Whereas, out of the two versions of the US-based Kraken offering, only the Pro version was available.
Regulators keep an eye on Binance
Binance, which is the world’s largest crypto exchange, is being closely monitored by regulators around the world. Because it is accused of providing its services to local users without license. Many countries around the world have banned it. After Belgium and Australia, now India has also joined this list which has banned Binance. Which says that it has no global headquarters and in November it has agreed to pay $4.3 billion, because it was found guilty of anti-money laundering rules in America.
HTX, formerly known as Huobi, said it has no operations in India, while Bitfinex, KuCoin, Bitstamp and Kraken are yet to comment.
India to impose TDS on crypto transactions in 2022
The Indian government had implemented anti-money laundering provisions on the crypto sector last year. In 2022, India dealt a major blow to local crypto exchanges by imposing a tax on transactions, which immediately reduced trading volumes.
Local exchanges had complained that the imposition of 1% TDS had driven Indian crypto traders to foreign platforms, which do not levy this tax, impacting their earnings.
CoinDCX CEO Sumit Gupta estimated that 95% of the trading volume had gone to foreign platforms.
