San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has been fined €3.3 million (approximately $3.6 million) by the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) for violating anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) regulations.

According to the DNB’s statement, Coinbase did not register with the DNB before providing services and provided services to Dutch users before successfully registering on September 22, 2022. Therefore non-compliant from at least November 2020 to August 2022. (DNB has been calling on operators to register since mid-2020)

In July last year, DNB used the same reason of "not obtaining registration" to Binance. During the unregistered period (May 2020 to December 1, 2021), DNB enjoyed an advantage over other registered competitors, and therefore had a negative impact on the exchange. Binance fined 3.3 million euros.

Both Binance and Coinbase said they would appeal against DNB’s fine. Later, Binance also established an entity company, Binance Nederland BV, in the Netherlands to promote compliance.

DNB's fine shows that it will pursue past responsibilities against overseas operators.

The Dutch central bank is only responsible for anti-money laundering, but overseas platforms must still register with the government

DNB stated that they will only supervise whether cryptocurrency service providers comply with AML/CTF regulations, but will not supervise financial industry risks. The Dutch Financial Market Supervisory Authority (AFM) also does not supervise these players. Therefore, there are no specific protections for cryptocurrency consumers, only general consumer protections.

Taiwan only regulates domestic businesses

After the FTX incident broke out, the Taiwan Financial Supervisory Commission was repeatedly asked whether it would supervise cryptocurrency companies. However, the chairman of the Financial Supervisory Commission still stated that investors should evaluate the risks themselves, citing the lack of oversight by overseas institutions. Only domestic registered operators will be supervised in accordance with the Measures for Preventing Money Laundering and Combating Terrorism Financing on Virtual Currency Platforms and Trading Business Enterprises.

Compared with DNB's actions in imposing penalties based on serving domestic customers, it is not the same.

This article "You will be fined for not registering before" Coinbase was retroactively fined 3.3 million euros by the Dutch Central Bank. It first appeared on Chain News ABMedia.