Luno still working with Malaysian bank to get account open again, resume trading

SA bitcoin exchange Luno is still working with bank authorities in Malaysia to get its bank account there up and running again, after the country’s tax authority last month took the decision to unfreeze its account the company’s bank account.

The tax authority in January froze the startup’s Malaysia bank account with Maybank, after it launched a probe into the cryptocurrency company’s activities in Malaysia.

The account has since been unfrozen, but Maybank has yet to reopen it, so that Luno can begin trading bitcoin again in Malaysia.

Read more: SA startup Luno’s Malaysian bank account still frozen as tax probe continues

Responding to Ventureburn via email from Money2020 Asia in Singapore yesterday, Luno co-founder and CEO Marcus Swanepoel said the process is taking time because of banks’ internal policies on re-activating accounts.

“Again, we are trying our best and have our team on the ground in KL (Kuala Lumpur) working on this daily constructively with Maybank but some of it is not in our hands unfortunately. As soon as we know more we will let you and everyone else know,” he said.

Swanepoel also stressed that there was no Malaysian authority probe into criminal activities.

A report by Malaysia’s Sun Daily last week said Malaysia’s Inland Revenue Board had requested information on all of Luno’s Malaysian customers following concerns over heavy transactions on its platform.

Meanwhile Swanepoel said the startup is opening another office in Jakarta and “a few other cities” — “soon”.

“Our industry has various challenges for various different reasons in various geographies but so far that’s what’s set us apart from others — the ability to generally avoid them or in cases where (they are) out of our hands as was the case in Malaysia, (to) get through them in order to provide the best service possible to our customers.

“Again, (we are) trying our best wherever we can,” said Swanepoel.