The Central Bank of the Netherlands has announced that it has fined Crypto.com for registration violations

The Central Bank of the Netherlands, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), has fined Crypto.com for operating without registration for more than two years. Although the penalty was imposed in October, it was announced on March 13. It is not clear why the move was not announced at the time or why it was announced now.

On October 23, the DNB imposed a fine of 2.85 million euros (US$3 million at the time) on Foris DAX MT, market-known Crypto.com, for providing crypto services without registration since May 21, 2020, at least since November 21, 2020. 8, 2022. May 21, 2020, was the date DBN introduced the registration requirements.

Crypto service providers are required to register under the Netherlands Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act. The starting amount of the fine is 2 million euros, but this increases according to the severity of the violation and the degree of guilt, DNB said.

Crypto.com has an advantage over the competition by not paying monitoring fees and compliance costs. Crypto.com had a “high number” of customers during that period and “DAX MT was unable to report unusual transactions to the Financial Intelligence Unit-Netherlands” due to a lack of registrations.

Crypto.com filed a protest against DNB's decision on October 9.

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Crypto.com was registered in the Netherlands in July 2023, a DNB spokesperson told Cointelegraph at the time, adding that Dutch users were allowed to use the exchange legally, even if they were operating illegally. A spokesperson for the exchange told Cointelegraph in a statement on March 13.

“The penalty relates to a past and settled incident, and will not affect our operations or services in the market. […] We addressed the problems raised in a timely and clear manner,” he said.

DNB establishes registration requirements for crypto service providers in April 2022. In August 2021, Binance was fined 3.3 million euros ($3.5 million at the time) for not registering after the company received a warning from DNB.

There are currently 41 registered crypto service providers in the Netherlands.

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