Independent Reserve Expands To Hong Kong And Southeast Asia: Report

Key Points:

• Independent Reserve plans expansion in Southeast Asia with the Hong Kong office.

Australian cryptocurrency exchange Independent Reserve has announced their plans to open a new office in Hong Kong. The firm is also exploring several other jurisdictions in Southeast Asia as part of its expansion plan.

Independent Reserve is one of Singapore’s eleven Major Payment Institutions and a licensed firm that is permitted to offer digital payment token services in the Lion City. In an interview with Forkast’s Pradipta Mukherjee, the exchange’s Singapore CEO, Lasanka Perera, said that the city-state’s ban on public advertising by crypto exchanges had led to a 90% drop in its monthly retail customer acquisition.

The exchange has been focusing on institutional customers, including family offices and accredited investors, and is looking to introduce more products and services for them. Independent Reserve hopes to double its daily trade volumes and expand its user base by 50% in Singapore by the end of this year.

Perera revealed in the interview that Singapore is Independent Reserve’s first market outside of its home in Australia. The firm is spending a bit of time looking at Hong Kong and other jurisdictions in Southeast Asia. He added that Hong Kong is a very active financial hub with deep capital markets that serve as the doorway to greater China, making it a very attractive commercial opportunity.

Although Singapore has quite active capital markets, investors are more focused on capital preservation and asset protection and not necessarily as active with allocations and risk-taking, making it a different market. Meanwhile, Dubai’s market regulations are just falling into place, with regulators working out the framework over there.

The opportunity in Dubai is access to the European market and capital. Many capital markets in Europe, and a lot of the flows are going through Dubai. A lot of the crypto participants that are looking at Dubai as a market will be looking to capture some of that flow by basing themselves in Dubai, hoping that sensible and stable regulations are introduced by those regulators. Stable banking is also very important for fiat to crypto exchanges like Independent Reserve.

Perera also noted that U.S. businesses and innovators in the space will be looking to move offshore, and ultimately, the U.S. will lose out on jobs and innovation and commercial opportunities. Customers in the U.S. will also lose access to solid crypto platforms.

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