Original author: Nancy, PANews
On June 5, Bloomberg reported that as US regulators have stepped up their scrutiny of Binance in recent months, the regulatory dilemma will make the issue of its CEO's succession more urgent. People familiar with the matter revealed that if Zhao Changpeng resigns, Richard Teng, Binance's new head of the Middle East and North Africa region, will become a popular candidate to take over as CEO.
At the same time, an anonymous former Binance employee also revealed to CoinDesk that "senior leadership and regulators have discussed behind closed doors and believe that Richard Teng is the only leader who can succeed Zhao Changpeng and continue to build the company according to his vision. At the same time, Richard Teng can help bridge the existing gap between the industry and regulators."
In response to this, Richard Teng said in an interview with CoinDesk that it is too early to speculate that he was being trained to "succeed Zhao Changpeng as Binance CEO". His new position is not even a promotion, but just an expansion of his responsibilities to help Zhao Changpeng review certain things. At the same time, he also said, "If you look back over the past 18 to 24 months, you can see that Binance has made a major shift in compliance, but we admit that there were problems in the past. We hope to work with all parties in a responsible manner to resolve all these policy issues and continue to prove that we are a brand new organization."
For a time, this recently promoted Binance executive aroused public curiosity. Who is Richard Teng?
Promoted 4 times in less than 2 years
Although the name Richard Teng is relatively unfamiliar to the outside world, he was quickly promoted in less than two years after joining the company and recently became the head of all regional markets outside of Binance in the United States.
Public information shows that Richard Teng is a 52-year-old Singaporean with a master's degree in applied finance from the University of Western Australia. Before joining Binance, Richard Teng worked at the Monetary Authority of Singapore for 13 years. In 2007, he served as the Chief Regulatory Officer of the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) for nearly 8 years, responsible for the formulation of rules, frameworks and policies for listing, trading and clearing. He then served as the head of the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of the Abu Dhabi Global Market for 6 years.
With more than 20 years of experience in financial services and regulation, Richard Teng has extensive compliance experience and is therefore considered in reports to be an ideal candidate to help guide Binance through regulatory difficulties. It is worth mentioning that Richard Teng was also selected as one of the "Top 100 Most Influential People in the UAE" by Arabian Business. According to the list, during his tenure as CEO of ADGM's FSRA, Richard Teng launched several first products, including digital banking, venture capital, fintech regulatory sandbox, private REIT system, manager licensing system and digital asset trading framework.
In August 2021, Richard Teng joined Binance as CEO of Singapore. From December 2021 to October 2022, Richard Teng served as the new head of Binance's Middle East and North Africa region. From November 2022 to April 2023, Richard Teng served as head of Asia, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and was appointed to lead all regional markets outside the United States two months later. From the timeline, Richard Teng has been promoted four times in less than two years, almost at rocket speed.
Not only that, Richard Teng has recently participated in various activities on behalf of Binance with high frequency, and has been actively operating his own Twitter account since May this year. A whopping 28 of the total 29 tweets have been published since May. It can be seen that after his latest promotion, Richard Teng began to significantly increase his external frequency on behalf of Binance.
Richard Teng on the left of Changpeng Zhao
According to Zhao Changpeng's recent statement on Twitter Space, Richard Teng was introduced by an employee of the Central Bank of Singapore, and he decided to hire Richard Teng two weeks after talking with him. As for this executive, Binance co-founder He Yi gave affirmation in a recent interview, "I think he is an experienced professional manager. Since he joined Binance, his scope has been continuously expanding. We all like and recognize Richard."
Amid regulatory crackdowns in multiple countries, is Dubai the key to Binance's business expansion?
In recent months, Binance has been questioned by regulators in the United States, Australia, Canada and other countries. The trading platform has had to stop providing services to relevant regions, and multiple law enforcement actions have also caused Binance's market share to decline. Although Binance's market share once exceeded half of the market due to the FTX incident, according to the latest data from CCData, the exchange's market share has dropped by about 10.8% since March this year.
For Binance, it is particularly tested under the pressure of US regulation. For example, the senior executives of the crypto exchange BitMEX resigned collectively after the US Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit. Samuel Lim, who has served as Binance's chief compliance officer since 2018, left in 2022 and was accused of aiding and abetting Binance's violations by the SEC earlier this year. Binance has listed compliance as one of its top priorities for 2023 and has added hundreds of employees to Binance's compliance department. According to Changpeng Zhao, Binance currently has a compliance team of more than 750 people, most of whom have previous backgrounds in law enforcement and regulatory agencies.
Compared with the United States and other countries, Dubai was once regarded as one of the crypto-friendly countries, attracting thousands of crypto companies to settle in. Binance also regards Dubai as a new safe haven. It not only obtained a virtual asset license issued by the Dubai regulator, but also has an office in the country and has more than 700 employees. Zhao Changpeng once predicted that Dubai has become one of the global centers of crypto innovation, and Binance's presence in the city has continued to grow. He even bought his first house in Dubai to show his support for Dubai.
However, after FTX went bankrupt, Dubai, which has always been friendly to the crypto community, began to strengthen its review of applicants for cryptocurrency licenses. In February of this year, the Dubai Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) issued the "2023 Virtual Assets and Related Activities Regulations", requiring crypto companies to obtain authorization and relevant licenses to operate in Dubai, covering everything from cybersecurity regulations to compliance and risk management standards, involving specific activities such as issuance, consulting, custody and exchange services.
A few months later, according to Bloomberg, officials from the Dubai Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) have asked Binance in recent weeks to provide more information about its ownership structure, governance and audit procedures; VARA requires all international companies seeking licenses to provide similar information. VARA officials are also seeking information on ownership, audits and board procedures at the Binance global group level. This also brings new regulatory challenges to Binance's layout in Dubai.
"I believe that the UAE and Dubai are among the most progressive governments in the world and can be ahead of the world. Working with the Dubai government, you will realize how well the country supports innovation, crypto adoption, and blockchain development, which is helpful because these factors will become the backbone of the future economic sector. We think about how to further support the government and share our expertise and knowledge so that this progressive system can manage systemic risks and anti-money laundering risks well, while also supporting innovation and growth." Richard Teng once said in an interview. For Binance, Richard Teng, who is based in Dubai, may be one of the key figures in its full entry into the region.