Financial regulators in all countries are closely monitoring the cryptocurrency market. South Korea has banned bitcoin trading from anonymous accounts. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has suspended the equivalent of $600 million in ICOs. Saudi Arabia is not associated with the digital currency market, but monitors it closely, although it has not taken any steps to discourage market activity.
“We are still assessing what kind of regulatory action we should take, but a ban is unlikely,” officials say.
Bitcoin mania has not gripped the country to the same extent as in South Korea and China, where regulators have taken more drastic action. However, according to some cryptocurrency companies, they offer their services to citizens. For example, Paxful claims to have sold more than 100,000 bitcoins in the country. BitOasis serves users in the Middle East and North Africa.
In addition, in December it was reported that the central banks of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had launched a pilot program to test how the new digital currency could be used to facilitate international payments.
This is a new area, and authorities want to see how it develops before committing to anything. The country's financial regulators are using this approach in other areas of financial technology. For example, there is a sandbox program (where companies are given a temporary license during development and research) that gives innovative technology companies the opportunity to develop products without worrying about regulations.
This program agrees on how to regulate a product's activities or creates new regulation.
The UK has a similar program run by the Financial Risk Authority, which allows businesses to test innovative products, services, business models and ways to implement them in a real market with real consumers.
Saudi Arabia, which is trying to shake off its reputation as a weak economy dependent solely on energy companies, is taking a number of steps to attract foreign investors and stimulate development in financial and capital markets. According to the Vision 2030 plan, it intends to sell 5% of the shares of the oil giant Saudi Aramco through an initial public offering.
According to http://www.businessinsider.com
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