I agree that they'd want to continue biz, but Luno messed up-whether it be lack of due diligence or not paying their taxes or not appointing the correct legal advice or not following procedure or whatever else they were doing in the background. At the least, they didn't plan for, nor calculate nor mitigate for the potential disruption, let alone be in a position to address the Malaysian community concerns. Companies like this make hay while profiting but have little regard for the public trust. But what is clear is they held people's cash hostage by:
1. the inflated market price (so, can't buy BTC with deposited cash, or be forced to buy at 30-50% higher rate as penalty for withdrawing from the exchange)
2. blocking withdrawals (they could've had alternatives in place - this is not a small mom n'pop store - see their website and history, they're a global business)
3. misdirecting and/or withholding information from their customers - people who placed their trust in them - so the customers couldn't make informed decisions (no need to look further than 'kimberly's' lack of answers previously and their pathetic blog posts)

IF Malaysia is such an important market, IF they really want to show commitment to this community, I challenge Luno to affect restitution for the investors that had to incur loss or opportunity cost due to their callousness.

just answer a simple question. why let authority has the reason/need to freeze you? simple..... answer me.

I don't want to defend Luno but I think you are way out of order here. The fact that you are quoting yourself is a little strange too.

1) Price is controlled by the whales not the exchange, nothing to do with Luno and EVERYTHING to do with those that had high volume of coins in the MYR exchange and could play the market.
2) Wrong! if it was so easy to do that then try opening a Coindesk account from outside of the US without a US bank account! Plus it is clearly stated in their site and EVERYONE knows this limitation when setting up an account. You can't cry fowl of this, that is willingly ignorant on your behalf. You know you could use LocalBitcoin to trade with less regulation but also higher fees. It's the price you pay for trading in a decentralised market on a centralised exchange.
3) I don't think that is fair, this level of feed back is better than almost any Malaysian company, they have no obligation to keep us up to data but they have been doing so. Sure the situation sucks but they haven't said you can start depositing and withdrawing.

Clearly you've lost money and are hurting, that sucks and I feel for you, I really do...you need to learn form this and have a plan B and C in place so it can't happen again and I really think you need to research more on how this crypto trading works.

Thanks for your considered reply but let’s start with this little nugget you stated a few days ago

“I have no faith in LUNO at all, they are dodgy AF”

Now, going thru your responses, 3 is a matter of opinion. The first two, however, are easily rebutted. Question for you: can Luno not be the mythical whale? Do they not have motive, specially given the circumstances? Did you follow the price, volumes and buy/sell walls during this incident? “I have no faith in LUNO at all, they are dodgy AF”

and 2 when I mentioned withdrawal alternatives, I didn’t say anything about international bank accounts - I mentioned alternatives. For instance, an exchange I used previously issued transferable vouchers in lieu of fiat - a USDT of sorts (not the same) - which provided their customers greater leeway if not trading crypto and access to their funds if they didn’t want to transfer through crypto.

Let’s return to your concern which I share with you. About educating ourselves. It’s not about crypto plan B or C or decentralised vs centralised. It’s about faith.. fiat is another word for faith. Crypto, as lucrative as it seemed during the hype, is about a monetary system, albeit a new one. The risks are inherently it’s strengths : anonymity, decentralised, non reversible transactions etc... the exchanges are the gatekeepers. They’re providing a service for a fee and they’re helping the crypto unbanked to become crypto asset owners. If the masses cannot trust their cash with exchanges to enter or exit crypto markets , we're going to lose out on adoption - price fluctuations be damned. If exchanges behave this way, they’re killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Authorities will clamp down, people will stay away and, unfortunately , markets like Malaysia will be left behind. Look at Dubai and Singapore or Japan and Estonia and tell me an exchange there could do such a thing and get away with it. Luno played us, yes I lost a bit, so did many others. The bigger issue is what can be done to restore confidence , or rebuild trust.

And let me end by quoting a brilliant writer, who once said

“I have no faith in LUNO at all, they are dodgy AF”

😉

All exchanges are dodgy AF. You need to have your wits with you

Luno was my first exchange, and I never have problems with it. Before that I was using local bitcoin to buy btc and being cheated twice. I sincerely hope that luno can settle the problem with the bank account.

Hey, Kimberly looks after a pretty large number of countries, so it's very hard for her to go deep within forums in each country. But since I'm the community guy for Malaysia -- here I am!

Hey, the Malaysian Luno Exchange, trading is only with other account holders who are registered to trade in Malaysia.

We don't share the exchange with other countries.

Hey man,

Yeah personally I thought it would be a very easy step as well. But no, it's proving to be taking quite a lot of time. I can only assure you that this is our top priority (every day we don't have our bank account, more people get frustrated with us -- and our business is handicapped). We are trying our best and continue to push the issue with Maybank.

Haha I didn't know mrluno was searchable on Google yet.

Hey man, for now you can do all the other functions, except the Deposits/Withdrawals.

I know this is what most people use though, and it's very frustrating.

However, here are some other things you could perhaps do in the meantime. For example:
1. Upgrade to Level 2 or Level 3 verification. (Upgrading an account takes time, so while preparing for the next (hopefully) bull run, you could prepare your account to handle larger amounts first.)
2. Trade. For example, if you had other ways of obtaining Bitcoin/ETH, you could transfer them into your Luno account and sell on the Exchange.

Thanks man for helping to clarify. Just to add on -- technically speaking, our exchange is not frozen. Can still trade on it like normal.

It's just the withdrawals/deposits. (We're working hard to get this reactivated.)

Hey man, thanks for the "warm" welcome.

To clarify again, we can not and will not set the price of Bitcoin on our Malaysian exchange. All the bids and orders you see on our Exchange -- they're not set by Luno -- but by users on the platform. When someone buys Bitcoin through our platform -- they're not buying it from Luno. Rather, they're buying it from a seller also on the Luno platform.

Luno doesn't ever sell Bitcoin directly to people. A poor analogy, but we're more like a Stock Exchange -- we match buyers and sellers, not sell shares directly to them. Hence there's no way we can "set" the price. Imagine if we did -- certain people (who win at that point) would like it, but others would hate it (those who lose at that point). Hence, there's no way to be fair -- so we will never set prices, nor sell Bitcoin directly.

(If you'd like a neutral, third-party explanation on why there exists a premium in certain markets -- Google "Kimchi Premium" and have a look at our Korean bros and sis.)

I can definitely understand your pain and anger. Over at Luno too, we've also suddenly gone from running smooth business operations to having our operations severely crippled.

But I will guarantee that we have done nothing dishonest and nothing criminal.

And should you decide to continue with us, we will continue to do our best to serve you.

Yeah, can assure you that Kimberly is a very nice lady.

Pls answer my question asked to her several times but without being answered.

Why IRB freeze the bank account of Luno but not others?

Did luno comply the statutory requirements and did your secretary remind you to do so?

I believe only if you did not comply for the tax return, they have the right to do so

mr luno, just a tips for you. pls try to consolidate 2-3 replies into one post instead of making one post for each reply.

He is still new here, perhaps a tutorial for How do I multi-quote? would be useful for him

It's not only Luno. Coinhako also stopped MYR deposits. And Remitano enabled KYC for Malaysian buyers.
All of this is happening due to BNM's new anti-money laundering document in December.

See the statement in the document below. They are not interested in Luno's taxes. They are interested in the taxes of customers (i.e. YOURS). Why? Because it is possible many are using Luno/Coinhako for money laundering.



This post has been edited by Andrew Lim: Feb 8 2018, 05:05 PM

MrLuno,
Appreciate your participation in the thread and addressing our concern.

Could you clarify, why is there varying exchange rate when i compare the price of btc in USD and MYR. Sometimes is 6.5, other time 4.5?
Is it due to the above, as in limited to MYR Seller price? How can I make purchase in USD and what will be luno conversion rate?

You didn't get my point.

Coinhako is not suspended or investigated by IRB. They are taking precarious steps to avoid

Coinhako was able to take precautionary steps because the Monetary Authority of Singapore closed their Singapore DBS accounts in September 2017. They already knew what to expect with IRB.

This was Coinhako's announcement when it happened: "Closure of our SGD bank account. Transition to Xfers. Do note that business is as per normal, just that we will not be able to process SGD via a bank account. How we are dealing with the situation Rest assured that your funds are safe, and this SGD suspension is a temporary issue."

Sound familiar?

I believe it's standard method for regulators/authorities to freeze accounts, before starting investigations. This is actually good for the consumer. For example, imagine a scammer organization. If the authorities allowed the bank account to still be open while investigating, the scammers could run away with the money.

For us, it's unfortunate that the authorities wanted to investigate our accounts and so decided to freeze it. However as mentioned earlier, the IRB has now unfrozen our account (if we were doing anything wrong, they would never allow this). Now we are just waiting Maybank to reactivate it. And yes, we are pushing hard for this.


Thank you so much for your support. We are trying and will continue to try our very best.


Hey man, as to why Luno's account was frozen but not the others I'm not sure why. We could speculate a lot of reasons (e.g. we are the largest exchange by volume so maybe they would investigate us first), but only the authorities would have the answer. Regarding statutory requirements, we of course follow all statutory requirements to operate properly within any country, including Malaysia.

As to the right to freeze accounts -- I wouldn't be able to comment. However in any investigation, I believe it's freeze first then investigate later (even if the company proves no wrong doing).

Perhaps it's due to the fact that this is such a new and (still) unregulated area. However the fact that IRB has given the green light shows that we have not done anything wrong here.

We are really sorry for the delay, and trouble that this has caused everyone.


Sorry! Such a noob. Am learning...


Thanks!

To clarify this, actually when you buy Bitcoin using Luno in Malaysia -- there is no conversion into USD. You are directly buying Bitcoin (from a seller) using Ringgit Malaysia.

The price that you see (perhaps at Google or Coinmarketcap) is usually an "average" Bitcoin price across a few benchmarks. There is actually no fixed Bitcoin price, and the price actually differs from Exchange/Country.

With Luno in Malaysia, you will always be purchasing in RM.

Mr Luno

A gift of RM5 in BTC to get a friend to sign up is patheticially small amount and out of date. Does it even register?



This post has been edited by TallJustin: Feb 8 2018, 08:38 PM

Mr Luno,

Can you add ETH/RM pair and BCH/RM pair?

TQ

that is Singapore and totally not same with Malaysia. Things that happan in Singapores =x Malaysia.

Do you know what are the statutory requirements for Sdn. Bhd to comply with Registrar of Companies, Audit and Tax?