The Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wants to take the Binance app off of Apple’s and Google’s app shops across the country.
The commission sent letters to both Google and Apple on April 9 asking them to take down the apps that let people access Binance’s trading site. The recent move came after the Philippine National Telecommunications Commission in March 2024 blocked access to the websites of two well-known bitcoin exchanges.
As a result of finding Binance, the SEC has come to the conclusion that the public’s continued use of these websites and apps is unsafe for Filipino investors’ funds. This is what SEC Chairperson Emilio B. Aquino wrote in the letter.
Binance Faces SEC Philippines
Aquino says that Binance has been found guilty of selling unregistered stocks to people in the Philippines. Binance is currently breaking the Securities Regulation Code because it is not listed with the government.
GWI study shows that more than 9.3 million people in the Philippines own cryptocurrency, making it the seventh-largest country in the world in terms of cryptocurrency ownership. Because Binance is so well-known around the world, it’s possible that Binance controls a significant portion of this market share.
Aquino says that banning the Cryptocurrency Exchange app will “stop the further spread of its illegal activities in the country” and help protect people from the “harmful effects” it has on the economy of the country.
The SEC first shut down the largest digital currency exchange in November 2023, saying it didn’t have a license to do business in the US. Cryptocurrency Exchange investors were given three months to get out of their positions on the site.
As part of this attempt, the commission also got in touch with Google and Meta and asked them to stop letting Cryptocurrency Exchange show ads to people in the Philippines.
The new action is very similar to what the Indian government did when it blocked access to Cryptocurrency Exchange. Firstly, the regulators told Apple and Google to get rid of the Cryptocurrency Exchange app. Next, they blocked the exchange’s trading site from all users in certain countries.
Binance would go back to India as a fully compliant platform after paying a big fine. For now, it’s not clear if the company will follow the same path in the Philippines.
