WazirX tries to assure users their funds are safe amid money laundering probe

Amid a war of words on Twitter between WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty and Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, WazirX has clarified to its users that work is as usual. Both WazirX and Binance are big entities in the Web3 world.

WazirX, from its official Twitter handle, said that operations continue as usual. “Crypto and INR withdrawals are being processed normally,” WazirX tweeted from its official handle.
All this discussion happened at a time when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) froze WazirX’s bank deposits worth Rs 64.67 crore.

WazirX co-founder Siddharth Menon tweeted, “We have never compromised on users, irrespective of how good or bad the situation is. From security to product, services to support. User’s funds are important, so we never used any lending services to earn profits hence we are solvent, and our crypto withdraws are active.”

As both the CEOs fight over ownership and the ED stays behind the company, Menon added in his tweet that the crypto exchange protects users, which is where they and Binance align.

Zhao and Shetty argued over the access to WazirX’s systems, including the company’s AWS account, user sign-up, trading and initiating withdrawals, and KYC. Zhao alleged that Shetty and his co-founders are the only ones with access to all these.

Shetty stated that Binance has not yet revealed its parent entity involved in the deal between WazirX and Binance. He also said that WazirX technology which was sold to Binance, was licensed to Zanmai by Binance for the INR market.

Now while Binance operates crypto-crypto trading and crypto deposits and withdrawals, Zanmai, the parent company of WazirX, operates INR-crypto trading and INR deposit and withdrawal.

The ED is conducting a money laundering investigation against several Indian NBFC companies & their fintech partners for predatory lending practices violating the RBI guidelines. According to ED, the tele-callers misuse personal data and use abusive language to extort high-interest rates from the loan takers, the investigative agency said in a release.

“Various fintech companies backed by Chinese funds could not get NBFC license from RBI for carrying lending business. So, they devised the MoU route with defunct NBFCs to piggyback on their license”, ED had said in the release.

In the heated argument on the micro-blogging platform, Zhao said Binance would want to work with the ED to fix issues regarding control, KYC, etc.

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