(Reuters)-Dubai, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (Reuters)-Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, is now hiring for more than 100 jobs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The company’s regional head says the company is helping to write Dubai’s new virtual asset law.
It has become more and more important for Binance to have ties to the Gulf state in recent months because the UAE is trying to become the world’s new digital asset centre and set up rules and regulations for it.
Working closely with the Dubai government, “it is a really advanced framework, and we are delighted to be a part of it,” said Binance’s MENA director, Richard Teng. “I wish more authorities across the world took the route Dubai has taken-public-private cooperation.”
The United Arab Emirates is trying to get more people to stop using cryptocurrencies for money laundering and other illegal things.
The UAE was added to the Financial Action Task Force’s ‘grey list‘ of nations subject to heightened scrutiny in March (FATF). Binance has been under a lot of scrutiny from governments and financial watchdogs since it was founded in 2017. This is because they are trying to figure out how the cryptocurrency business has grown in an unregulated environment.
“Binance adheres to worldwide anti-money laundering norms, including global sanctions and KYC (Know Your Customer) requirements,“ Teng said.
Teng said that the business is now hiring for more than 100 UAE roles, as seen by LinkedIn job listings, after the firm’s licencing by Dubai’s new virtual asset regulator this month.
Changpeng Zhao, the company’s CEO, is a frequent traveller to the UAE and has said that he purchased property there last year. In addition, the company is working with Dubai’s financial free zone to help them build a virtual asset ecosystem.
However, Teng would not confirm if Dubai will serve as the company’s headquarters.
Binance says that it doesn’t have a headquarters and doesn’t say who runs its main exchange, even though Zhao has said that he wants to build a number of regional centres.
“Undoubtedly, Dubai is an important hub that we are looking at as we move forward,” he said, adding that “internal talks” were still taking place about where Binance’s headquarters should be.
Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates’ seven emirates and the region’s commercial powerhouse, enacted the region’s first digital asset legislation and established the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) in March (VARA).
It just licenced Binance and fellow global heavyweight FTX Europe, and firms like crypto.com are establishing headquarters there.
It was in December that Teng took over the MENA job. He spent a short time in Singapore, where Binance dropped its plan for a new regulatory system late last year.
People in Singapore have recently been told that Binance may be breaking the law and that it should stop providing payment services to Singaporeans right away.
