Economy
Binance, SEC strike deal to keep US customer assets in country
Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, and Binance.US have entered into an agreement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to ensure that U.S. customer assets remain in the United States until a sweeping lawsuit filed this month by the regulatory agency is resolved.
The agreement, disclosed in court papers filed late on Friday, still requires the approval of the federal judge overseeing the litigation. To make certain that U.S. customer assets do not go offshore, the agreement allows only Binance.US employees access to these assets.
The SEC on June 5 sued Binance, its CEO and founder Changpeng Zhao and Binance.US’s operator, alleging that Binance artificially inflated its trading volumes, diverted customer funds, failed to restrict U.S. customers from its platform and misled investors about its market surveillance controls.
The suit and one filed by the SEC the following day against major U.S. exchange Coinbase represented a dramatic escalation of a crackdown on the industry by U.S. regulators.
Under the agreement, which does not resolve the SEC lawsuit, Binance.US will take steps to make sure that no Binance Holdings officials have access to private keys for its various wallets, hardware wallets or root access to Binance.US’s Amazon Web Services tools, the court filings showed.
The SEC said in a statement released on Saturday that the emergency relief order secured for Binance.US customers will protect their assets and ensure that they can continue to withdraw those assets.
“Given that Changpeng Zhao and Binance have control of the platforms’ customers’ assets and have been able to commingle customer assets or divert customer assets as they please … these prohibitions are essential to protecting investor assets,” Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s enforcement division, said in the statement.
A Binance spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday: “Although we maintain that the SEC’s request for emergency relief was entirely unwarranted, we are pleased that the disagreement over this request was resolved on mutually acceptable terms. User funds have been and always will be safe and secure on all Binance-affiliated platforms.”
Under other provisions in the proposed agreement, Binance.US will create new crypto wallets to which the global exchange’s employees have no access, provide additional information to the SEC and agree to an expedited discovery schedule, the filings said.
The U.S. affiliate of Binance halted dollar deposits last week and gave customers a deadline of June 13 to withdraw their dollar funds, after SEC asked a court to freeze its assets.
© Reuters. Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina attends a news conference in Moscow, Russia June 14, 2019. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov/File Photo
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s central bank will need two to three months to make sure that inflation is steadily declining before taking any decision on interest rate cuts, the bank’s governor Elvira Nabiullina told RBC media on Sunday.
The central bank raised its key interest rate by 100 basis points to 16% earlier in December, hiking for the fifth consecutive meeting in response to stubborn inflation, and suggested that its tightening cycle was nearly over.
Nabiullina said it was not yet clear when exactly the regulator would start cutting rates, however.
“We really need to make sure that inflation is steadily decreasing, that these are not one-off factors that can affect the rate of price growth in a particular month,” she said.
Nabiullina said the bank was taking into account a wide range of indicators but primarily those that “characterize the stability of inflation”.
“This will take two or three months or more – it depends on how much the wide range of indicators that characterize sustainable inflation declines,” she said.
The bank will next convene to set its benchmark rate on Feb. 16.
The governor also said the bank should have started monetary policy tightening earlier than in July, when it embarked on the rate-hiking cycle.
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Workers walk past an under-construction area with completed office towers in the background, in Shenzhen’s Qianhai new district, Guangdong province, China August 25, 2023. REUTERS/David Kirton/File Photo
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s top planning body said on Saturday it had identified a second batch of public investment projects, including flood control and disaster relief programmes, under a bond issuance and investment plan announced in October to boost the economy.
With the latest tranche, China has now earmarked more than 800 billion yuan of its 1 trillion yuan ($140 billion) in additional government bond issuance in the fourth quarter, as it focuses on fiscal steps to shore up the flagging economy.
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a statement on Saturday it had identified 9,600 projects with planned investment of more than 560 billion yuan.
China’s economy, the world’s second largest, is struggling to regain its footing post-COVID-19 as policymakers grapple with tepid consumer demand, weak exports, falling foreign investment and a deepening real estate crisis.
The 1 trillion yuan in additional bond issuance will widen China’s 2023 budget deficit ratio to around 3.8 percent from 3 percent, the state-run Xinhua news agency has said.
“Construction of the projects will improve China’s flood control system, emergency response mechanism and disaster relief capabilities, and better protect people’s lives and property, so it is very significant,” the NDRC said.
The agency said it will coordinate with other government bodies to make sure that funds are allocated speedily for investment and that high standards of quality are maintained in project construction.
($1 = 7.1315 renminbi)
© Reuters. Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina attends a news conference in Moscow, Russia June 14, 2019. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov/File Photo
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s central bank will need two to three months to make sure that inflation is steadily declining before taking any decision on interest rate cuts, the bank’s governor Elvira Nabiullina told RBC media on Sunday.
The central bank raised its key interest rate by 100 basis points to 16% earlier in December, hiking for the fifth consecutive meeting in response to stubborn inflation, and suggested that its tightening cycle was nearly over.
Nabiullina said it was not yet clear when exactly the regulator would start cutting rates, however.
“We really need to make sure that inflation is steadily decreasing, that these are not one-off factors that can affect the rate of price growth in a particular month,” she said.
Nabiullina said the bank was taking into account a wide range of indicators but primarily those that “characterize the stability of inflation”.
“This will take two or three months or more – it depends on how much the wide range of indicators that characterize sustainable inflation declines,” she said.
The bank will next convene to set its benchmark rate on Feb. 16.
The governor also said the bank should have started monetary policy tightening earlier than in July, when it embarked on the rate-hiking cycle.
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