Singapore regulators are working with traditional banks to develop uniform standards for screening potential customers from the crypto industry. This collaboration has been ongoing for the last six months. According to a Bloomberg report, “The lenders are collaborating with the central bank and police to fine-tune their vetting approach when opening accounts for service providers in all types of digital assets. The industry-driven project has been ongoing for about six months, and a report outlining best practices in areas like due diligence and risk management may be published in the next two months,” the sources said, requesting anonymity as the discussions are not public. The potential guidelines will also cover the topics of stablecoins, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and transferable gaming or streaming credits. At the same time, the banks will reserve the right to make decisions based on guidelines and their own risk assessment.
The report also suggests, “The crypto industry has long struggled for ready access to traditional banks, many of whom remain wary of the volatility in digital assets and potential regulatory heat, particularly in the wake of high-profile failures at firms from FTX to Terraform Labs. The collapses of US lenders Silvergate Capital Corp. and Signature Bank, which provided payment services for crypto firms, have also set clients scrambling for new banks.”
The community finds this to be good news. A Twitter user writes, “Some clarity at least. Honest players will know how to qualify themselves.” This development comes as the relationship between banks and crypto drifts apart in the US. Following the collapse of the FTX exchange, the US government is believed to have launched a secret Operation Choke Point 2.0 to cut the banking access of the crypto firms.
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