Cryptocurrency exchange OKX suspends services in India

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Cryptocurrency exchange OKX announced in an email to customers on Thursday that it has suspended services for users in India and advised them to withdraw their funds by the end of April.

The move comes after Apple and Google pulled OKX's namesake app from the country after an Indian government agency said a number of crypto exchanges were operating illegally in the South Asian market. It is something.

The government agency Financial Intelligence Bureau named Binance, Kraken, Huobi and Gate.io as apps operating “illegally” in India, but did not name OKX in an official statement.

OKX has advised Indian customers to close all active margin positions and withdraw all funds by April 30th. The virtual currency exchange cited “local regulations” as the measure.

Virtual currencies were introduced into India's anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing framework in March last year. Dozens of companies, including local exchanges CoinSwitch and CoinDCX, have registered with the FIU, but several international exchanges still do not comply with the law, the FIU announced late last year.

Multiple Indian traders have flocked to global crypto platforms for apparent tax evasion purposes. India will start taxing cryptocurrencies in 2022, imposing a 30% tax on profits and a 1% deduction for each crypto transaction.

While India-based cryptocurrency exchanges continued to require strict customer verification before registering new users, many global platforms did not do the same. Coinbase stopped registering Indian consumers last year.