OKX Terminates Services in India, Tells Users to Withdraw Funds By End April

OKX is ending its services in India, giving its users just over one month to withdraw their funds.

The move comes three months after the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Indian Ministry of Finance issued compliance notices to nine foreign crypto exchanges including Binance and Kraken, although OKX was not on the list.

Exchanges in India must be registered with the FIU and comply with their rules as part of the country's anti-money laundering framework introduced in March 2023. OKX was not one of the 28 companies that fulfilled these requirements by the end of 2023.

A notice issued to customers advised them to close margin, perpetual, futures, and option positions, and to withdraw all funds by 30 April.

"After this date we'll restrict your account" to withdrawals only, the emailed notice said.

The FIU additionally asked the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to block the websites of the identified cryptocurrency exchanges within a fortnight of receiving the notification.

OKX introduced a new registration involvement featuring Know Your Customer checks after authorities blocked its website.

India's Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, said cryptocurrencies "cannot be currencies."

“If one country regulates it and others don’t, it’ll be an easy way of moving money, round-tripping, or funding drugs, or even terrorism and so on. So we wanted to create a kind of a framework by taking it to the level of G20,” she said.