The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) statement on Thursday indicated that it wants to “limit potential consumer harm,” as the authority repeatedly warned that cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, and its price speculations were not suitable for general public trading.
The new proposed regulations will ban crypto providers from accepting local credit card payments, providing margin or leverage to retail customers, and offering incentives on trading. The measures will be effective around mid-2024 onward.
Previously, Singapore’s Payment Services Act for crypto regulation, came into effect in January 2020. After that in July, the regulator ordered all crypto firms to safekeep customer assets under statutory trust before 2021.
Furthermore, MAS restricts retail lending by crypto firms or stakinging customer assets as well. Moreover, Singapore also bans crypto from promoting in public areas or third parties space outside the service provider’s own website and social media accounts.
At FinTech Festival 2023, Ravi Menon, managing director of MAS said, crypto “have failed the test of digital money.” And “They perform poorly as a medium of exchange or store of value”, also “Many investors suffered significant losses.”
Ho Hern Shin, the deputy managing director of financial supervision at MAS said, even with these business conduct and measures, it cannot insulate their customers from speculative losses. The deputy also added the warning for consumers, not to deal with unregulated entities.
