Binance has confirmed talks with the Securities Commission Malaysia and Bank Negara Malaysia on a licensed route back into the Malaysian market.
According to a statement provided to Bloomberg, Binance has been jointly engaging the Securities Commission Malaysia and Bank Negara Malaysia for the past ten months on a licensed pathway for offering its products and services in the country. The discussions focus on the viability and structure of a licensed business model in Malaysia. The company declined to specify which type of licence it is pursuing.
Regulatory history in Malaysia
Binance’s position in Malaysia has been restricted since July 2021, when the Securities Commission ordered the exchange to cease operations in the country after finding that it was illegally operating a digital asset exchange. The order also required Binance to halt all media and marketing activities and to restrict Malaysian investors from accessing its Telegram group. Malaysian authorities have since blocked the exchange’s website and applications.
The regulator’s stance has shifted more than once since then. The Securities Commission removed Binance from its Investor Alert List in 2024, but added it back in October 2026 without giving a reason. Regulatory approval would give Binance a formal route back into a market where it has faced restrictions for more than five years.
Scrutiny of peer-to-peer activity
The talks are taking place alongside political scrutiny of Binance’s peer-to-peer (P2P) platform. In September 2026, Malaysian lawmaker Lim Guan Eng wrote to the Securities Commission asking it to investigate whether the platform was facilitating ringgit transactions through advertisements listed under other currency denominations. His office circulated the letter on 31 October 2026, citing Binance’s recent security incident.
In response, Binance stated that it had voluntarily disabled a Papua New Guinea kina marketplace on its P2P platform, which had been unofficially pegged to the ringgit, as part of its engagement with the Securities Commission. The company said the latest complaint concerned a single advertisement placed by a non-Malaysian user on the Romanian leu marketplace, and that no other products on the platform are pegged to the ringgit or serve as substitutes for it.
A Binance spokesperson acknowledged that no platform or control mechanism can fully stop bad actors determined to bypass marketplace rules, but said the company does not consider the isolated case to indicate a sustained effort to circumvent Malaysian law.
Talks follow security breach
The licensing discussions became public in the same week that Binance reported a security breach involving up to USD 6.3 billion. The exchange suspended withdrawals and committed to covering all losses. Full details of the breach have not yet been disclosed.
Binance said it remains committed to working with Malaysian regulators to make its services available to users in the country in a compliant manner.
