“Binance is not leaving Europe,” Gillian Lynch, head of Europe and the United Kingdom, told Reuters, after its bid to secure a licence in Greece to offer services such as crypto trading in the EU unravelled.
“We may just have a different pathway to being authorised,” she said. “If it is not Greece, I’m looking at other alternatives.”
The comments put Binance on a potential collision course with European regulators. The company has one week to secure a licence before its current permission to operate in Europe expires, which would require it to wind down EU operations.
Two people with knowledge of the process told Reuters that Binance has held talks with regulators in Ireland, Latvia and Greece but faced resistance in all three countries.
They said officials were concerned about the company’s past penalties for money laundering, its complex international structure and what they viewed as a risk-taking culture.
Regulators in the three countries declined to comment, or did not respond.
The approaches to several regulators highlight how one of the world’s largest crypto companies has struggled to overcome regulatory resistance to securing an EU licence.
Lynch said Binance did not know why it had been refused approval and had previously believed the Greek regulator planned to grant a licence.
She said Binance had contacted four or five regulators but only made one application, to Greece.
Asked about Binance’s past problems, Lynch said Binance had invested in compliance and internal controls, employed about 1,500 compliance staff, and had no outstanding issues related to its application.