Upbit, one of the largest crypto exchanges in South Korea, has obtained a Major Payment Institution (MPI) license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) for its local branch, Upbit Singapore. The news was announced on Jan. 8 on Upbit’s official website.
Upbit Singapore intends to expand its range of services in the country after securing the MPI license. The exchange has now joined 15 other institutions holding MPI status, including Ripple, Blockchain.com, Paxos, Coinbase and Revolut.
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The initial in-principal approval from the MAS was revealed back in October 2023, while the company has been operating in Singapore since 2018. At the time, Upbit Singapore’s chief operating officer Raks Sondhi told Cointelegraph that the company would focus on “the institutional segment and infrastructure projects” in the Singaporean market.
An MPI license allows institutions to provide crypto- and fiat-related services to Singaporeans. Licensed firms are authorized to conduct payment services without being subjected to single transaction limits of 3 million Singaporean dollars ($2.2 million) and monthly limits of 6 million Singaporean dollars ($4.4 million). In October 2023 alone.
In November 2023, the MAS laid down measures for digital payment token service providers to discourage speculation in cryptocurrency investments. The service providers must not offer financing, margin or leveraged transactions or provide any incentives to trade in cryptocurrencies. In addition, customers won’t be allowed to use their credit cards to buy crypto, and their crypto holdings won’t be counted as a part of their net worth by banking institutions.
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