Luno’s Chief Compliance Officer, Sameer Ismail, gave this interview right before his presentation at Bitcoin Wednesday on 6 February, 2019. His was a staunch pro-regulatory view, as Luno’s goal is to offer Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange services to the mass market across many countries.
For example, he said:
I think we’ll see jurisdictions introducing regulations in the next 12 to 18 months that I think will bring cryptocurrencies in line with other regulated financial activity. Whether that is considered to be tightening or loosening, I actually think that will help the players who are wanting to do things the right way because that will give him access to banking, access to payment service providers, in a way that is currently quite difficult because of the grey area regulations wise. So I actually think that if you are a good actor in the space you’re life is going to be made a little easier by regulation whereas if you are potentially opposed to some aspect of regulation, your life is going to get more difficult.
Some of the questions covered in this interview:
- What is your background, and the main reasons behind starting Luno?
- How did you set yourself apart from the competition and what sets Luno apart from other exchanges?
- How did you end up working with PayFast? Plus, subsequently what facilitated one of the first
crypto-currency Integrations into a payment processor in the world? - How do you deal with issues of security, did you face any big challenges prior or during the initial release?
- What challenges did you face as a fledging crypto company, and how have you dealt with the challenges of a volatile market and other uncertainties?
- You held an FCA Sandbox programme in 2016. What was the outcome? Did you get any unexpected or surprising results?
- What are your main markets?
- What are the main differences/similarities between these markets?
- Who are your ideal users and why?
- Who are your most notable investors?
- How have these investors influenced your development?
- How has Brexit effected your strategy?
- What is your policy toward forks?
- What chances do alternative coins have to get listed by Luno?
- How can they improve those chances?
- How are you marketing your custodial wallet?
- How do you see the market for this type of wallet developing?
- Do you have plans to develop standard wallets as well?
- What is your response to critics of this type of custodial wallet service?
- What’s your view of regulatory development?
- Should we expect jurisdictions with tighter regulations or will they eventually become more relaxed?
- What will be the effect of more autonomous, decentralized and privacy enhancing services on regulations on your business as a whole?
- What is your view of competition from banks and other more traditional fintech players?
You can find out more about Sameer Ismail by reading his profile.
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