COMPLIANCE PUSH
In the interview, Teng also defended Binance’s compliance record, saying it has invested heavily in strengthening its governance framework after past regulatory breaches.
Around a quarter of Binance’s global workforce is now dedicated to compliance, he said.
“We spend more than US$300 million a year on compliance costs, to make sure that our compliance standards are very, very, very strong and robust.”
Teng said Binance publishes proof of reserves to show customer assets are fully backed, and maintains a Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) to compensate users in the event of a security breach, measures he said go beyond what many regulators require.
“We believe a lot in customer protection,” he said. “So actually, we go beyond what many regulators prescribe to protect our users.”
Since Binance was founded in 2017, the cryptocurrency industry has evolved rapidly.
“A lot of times, institutions when they start growing, they do make mistakes,” said Teng, who joined the company in August 2021 as CEO of Binance Singapore.
“What is more important is that we acknowledge those mistakes, invest greatly to correct them, and then become better and stronger.”
When Binance was started, only about 6 million people worldwide had exposure to cryptocurrencies. Today, that number has grown to nearly 740 million, about half of whom are Binance users, said Teng.
“When we first started off, the landscape was totally different. The rules were unclear,” he added.
“The rules have developed quite a fair bit in the last two to three years … so we’re in a different space.”