Prior to joining Binance, Goodbody worked as head of Europe and Americas at Huobi, where in November 2019 he formed the Global Institutional Business department – a team and line of products specifically targeting institutional products, under which the exchange recently launched its Huobi Brokerage platform.
Binance, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by 24-hour volume, has hired an exec from one of its foremost competitor exchanges, Huobi.
According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Jan. 30, Binance has hired Josh Goodbody as its new director of European and Latin American growth and institutional business.
Before Huobi, Goodbody worked as a financial lawyer, providing counsel to such major firms as JPMorgan, Credit Suisse and State Street. Per his LinkedIn profile, he also as an advisor to the founder at Equilibrium, a multi-chain network for decentralized finance products and stablecoins backed by cryptocurrency.
Binance co-founder Yi He said that Latin America and Europe are key markets for Binance, and that Goodbody will help the exchange expand its business into the region. In his new role, Goodbody will focus on offering products tailored to both retail and institutional investors.
Hire comes as part of a wider expansion
Binance has already been making moves in Latin America, having launched a fiat gateway for clients in the region last month. On Dec. 19, the exchange announced that a new platform, Latamex, will operate under the Binance Fiat Gateway and allow users to purchase cryptocurrency directly in association with Settle Network.
The initial launch of the platform in Argentina and Brazil will enable the direct purchase of Bitcoin, Binance Coin (BNB), Ether (ETH) and Binance’s stablecoin Binance USD (BUSD) with Argentine pesos and Brazilian reals.
Regarding Europe, Binance added six new trading pairs against the euro on Jan. 3. The new pairs follow the addition of euro deposits and withdrawals in November, along with identical services for the Russian ruble, Ukrainian hryvnia and Kazakhstani tenge.
UK Financial Watchdog FCA Now Supervises AML/CTF Compliance of Crypto Businesses
Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) now monitors anti-money laundering (AML) and counter terrorist financing (CTF) for companies carrying out cryptocurrency-related activities.
According to an official announcement published on Jan. 10, FCA will supervise whether United Kingdom-registered businesses engaged in crypto asset-related operations are compliant with relevant regulations and requirements.
List of requirements to crypto businesses
Further in the announcement, FCA set forth a list of requirements for cryptocurrency-related businesses, which includes the identification and assessment of risks in regards to AML and CFT, development of policies and controls to eliminate risks associated with AML and CFT, conduction of customer due diligence, and others.
“We will proactively supervise firms’ compliance with the new regulations, and will take swift action where firms fall short of desired standards and cause risks to market integrity”, the announcement said.
Britain’s crypto drama
Back in July 2018, FCA warned that cryptocurrencies pose a huge risk to consumers who are generally misinformed about them, and recommended that products such as derivatives and exchange-traded notes that reference crypto-assets were “ill-suited” to small investors.
Although the FCA is still considering the restriction of crypto derivatives for retail investors, it concluded last summer that major cryptocurrencies are “exchange tokens” which are “usually decentralized and primarily used as a means of exchange.”
At the time, the regulator emphasized that such digital currencies do not fall under the regulatory scope of the FCA and are outside its regulatory purview.
In late November of last year, Piers Ridyard, CEO of the Radix decentralized ledger, told Cointelegraph that U.K. authorities are actually relatively open to crypto innovation, and noted:
“The FCA has been progressive on its views on crypto for years; including monitoring and permitting trials of the technology in sandbox environments before regulatory licenses are needed. The UK generally sees itself as a Fintech leader, and the FCA sees part of its job as not getting in the way of innovation.”
