Richard Teng, Binance's head of Europe and MENA (Middle East and North Africa), announced that after working closely with Swedish regulatory authorities for months, Binance has been granted regulatory approval in Sweden. Sweden is the latest state to give Binance authorization, following France, Italy, Lithuania, Spain, Cyprus and Poland.
The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) granted Binance Nordics AB registration as a financial institution for virtual currency management and trading, Binance announced in a Jan. 10 blog post. Swedish residents will now be able to participate in a range of services offered by Binance, including buying and selling cryptocurrency with Euros, spot and margin trading, Binance Earn, Binance Pay, Binance Pool and Binance Visa Card.
“Binance continues to demonstrate its commitment to work closely with regulatory agencies to uphold global standards. Our registration in Sweden is the result of many months of diligent, hard work from our team, underpinning our commitment to the Swedish market and our users. We are deeply grateful for the support from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority throughout the application process and for the approval. Sweden is now amongst the growing list of global jurisdictions that have granted regulatory approval to Binance," Teng said in the post.
In 2022, Binance's workforce increased from 3,000 to 8,000 people, CEO Changpeng Zhao said at the recent Crypto Finance Conference in St. Moritz, CoinDesk reported. While many other crypto companies have been downsizing in the last few months, Zhao said Binance plans to grow its workforce by as much as 30%.
“Sweden fully adopts EU laws and has further local requirements, so we have been careful to ensure that Binance Nordics AB has adopted risk and AML policies to match this exacting standard. Our next big task will be the successful migration and launch of local operations, including hiring of local talent, organizing more events and delivering more crypto education in Sweden," Roy van Krimpen, Binance's lead in the Nordics and Benelux region, said in the blog.
This all comes as Norway-based, digital asset-native research firm Arcane issued a year-end review highlighting Binance as an "outlier" in the industry and naming the exchange as one of the "few apparent winners" in 2022. The report pointed to Binance lifting trading fees for BTC spot pairs as one reason for its strong market position.