The Chief Executive Officer of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, recently disclosed his reason for halting its operations in India. The executive said that the Reserve Bank of India had placed “informal” pressure on his organization.
During his remarks concerning the event, the executive remarked that the economic situation in the Asian nation was a peculiar one. India’s financial market, Armstrong says, is unique because some people in the country’s central bank are pessimistic about digital assets, although the country’s highest court refused to outlaw digital assets.
Coinbase had set up an outlet of its operations in the Asian country on the 7th of last month. However, the company closed its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) operations less than a week after launching in the Asian nation.
Meanwhile, Coinbase isn’t the only digital assets settlements services provider that shut down its UPI services in the Asian country. CoinSwitch Kuber also pulled down UPI services for its clientele near the time when Coinbase left the UPI service scene.
UPI is a significant payment infrastructure that the RBI indirectly supervises. Speaking further about their shut down of UPI settlements in India, Armstrong referenced a terminology used in the local press, “shadow ban,” which depicted that the nation was stealthily outlawing some processes in the digital asset industry.
Armstrong remarked that some persons within the country’s financial sector are applying subtle pressure to make it impossible to make some payments. UPI settlements are possibly part of the transactions that the individuals in the country’s financial sector want to disable.
Meanwhile, the Asian country is reportedly significant to Coinbase’s cross-border expansion. The fintech company had also been employing senior executive members to help advance its advancement in the country. Reports show that Coinbase intends to multiply its staff this year by three times their current number to a thousand members.
The executive asserted that the RBI was infringing on the judgment of the Supreme Court two years back when it ruled that it would not ban crypto. However, Armstrong adds that he would instead concentrate on revamping its business activities in the country.
He added that the country would keep enlarging its international reach, although he says he isn’t sure about how many countries would accept his company’s services. The resultant event that meets the digital assets’ payments processor in different countries would, however, help showcase the situation about the legal challenges of digital assets’ exchanges globally.
To Armstrong, the company’s decision to launch its services in different countries, including India, would force stakeholders to converse on the prospects, challenges, and other industry issues. Armstrong references that the country’s journalists are entertaining roundtable discussions around the industry and that other stakeholders are meeting to determine the subsequent stages for the crypto industry in India.
However, the exchange’s CEO says his organization has other means of re-launching its financial offerings in the nation through other settlement means other than UPI. The CEO of his organization would consider duplicating its successful approach to re-launching its operations in the Asian nation with other countries.
