Binance appoints new CEO for its Australian Operations
Binance, the embattled crypto exchange that has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons, has appointed Leigh Travers as the new CEO for its Australian operations.
Travers was the CEO and Director of DigitalX which is an asset management platform and is listed on the Australian Securities exchange. He has been working there for the past 7 years and has been responsible for building out its strategies and helping with the growth of the company. He joins Binance at a time when the exchange has been under a lot of pressure from the regulators in many countries around the world and he would be expected to help in maintaining good relations with the Australian regulators as the company looks to expand in the region.
Sam Teoh, COO at Binance Australia said, “We’ve observed the work Leigh has done at DigitalX for a while now and we’re excited to work with him not just on Binance Australia’s continued growth, but widespread adoption of blockchain businesses and cryptocurrency in Australia at large.”
He would be expected to get to work quickly as he would need to repair all the reputational damage that has been caused to the Binance exchange over the last couple of months as the regulators in the UK, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and other regions have shut down the operations of Binance for now following any of the compliance procedures laid down for crypto trading in the respective countries. The exchange had grown rapidly in the regions at a time when there were little by way of regulations in these countries about crypto. Now that these countries have started bringing in a lot of crypto regulations, it is immediately visible that the exchange does not adhere to many of the regulations that have been laid down and that is why is it now scrambling to adopt various compliance procedures and forcing its users to undergo KYC.
Travers said: “From an industry perspective, I know we must continue to develop our relationships with regulatory bodies while reinforcing our company commitment to compliance and best practice. As the market leader in the digital asset space, we have a responsibility to be involved in helping to shape the growth of our industry and this means prioritizing engagement and conversations with policymakers and regulators.”
This regulatory compliance is the focus that seems to have been laid down from the top as one of the highest priorities for the exchange and the same thoughts have been echoed by the founder CZ as well as the Binance Singapore CEO Richard Teng.
