Philippines tells app stores to remove Binance

Philippine market regulators said Tuesday they had ordered Apple and Google to remove the apps of the virtual cryptocurrency exchange operator Binance from their app stores to protect investors from the threat to their financial security posed by the digital assets.

The country’s Securities and Exchange Commission made the request in a letter dated Friday saying Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, was operating an as unregistered broker selling or offering unregistered securities in breach of the law, the watchdog said in a news release.

“The SEC has identified [Binance] and concluded that the public’s continued access to these websites/ apps poses a threat to the security of the funds of investing Filipinos,” SEC Chairperson Emilio B. Aquino wrote in the letter.

Removing and blocking applications of Binance would, he said, “prevent the further proliferation of its illegal activities in the country and protect the investing public from its detrimental effects on our economy.”

The move follows prosecution by regulatory authorities in the United States, citing similar complaints.

The Philippine financial watchdog accused Binance of using promotional campaigns on social media to encourage Filipinos to sign up to invest and trade on its platforms without first securing an SEC authorization to solicit investments from the public, or operate an exchange buying and selling securities.

“Filipino investors with investments in Binance to immediately close their positions and/or transfer their cryptocurrency holdings to their own crypto wallets or in accounts with cryptocurrency service providers that are duly registered in the Philippines,” the announcement states.

The SEC said it had already asked the National Telecommunications Commission to block Binance’s websites to thwart its “unauthorized investment solicitation activities” in the Philippines.

It said it had first warned the public against using Binance’s platform to invest in November and had been looking into blocking the platform ever since.

The step by Manila adds to a slew of legal and business headaches buffeting the Malta-headquartered firm and recently appointed replacement CEO Richard Teng, a former United Arab Emirates regulator of prudential markets and virtual assets for Abu Dhabi’s Global Market financial center.

Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty to U.S. Bank Secrecy Act violations in a settlement with the Department of Justice in November in which he also agreed to step aside, is due to be sentenced on April 30.

Binance has separately been sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for misappropriating the assets of its users.