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Columbia Business School professor commends 'Binance's net contribution to a more inclusive financial system'

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Columbia Business School professor commends 'Binance's net contribution to a more inclusive financial system'
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Author and adjunct professor Omid Malekan (left) and Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) | omidmalekan.com, provided

Omid Malekan, an author and adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, said that rather than harming consumers like the failed crypto exchange FTX, Binance expanded financial inclusion to underserved communities. Malekan said in a Nov. 22 post on X that Binance was more successful than many traditional financial institutions in expanding financial services to include underprivileged people.

"Unlike FTX—a company whose psychopathic leader was beloved by half the people in that press conference not that long ago—Binance didn’t abscond with user money. It did a reasonably decent job of onboarding tens of millions of poor, brown, and otherwise underprivileged people into the financial system, something the world’s compliant financial firms have chronically failed to do (which is OK—it’s not considered redlining when the AML department holds the pen). Binance's net contribution to a more inclusive financial system is something to be commended," said Malekan.

Binance reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Nov. 21, agreeing to pay $4.3 billion in penalties to resolve historical compliance issues, according to a DOJ press release. As part of the resolution, the company’s founder, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), agreed to step down from his role as CEO and pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program.

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Binance, in a Nov. 21 post about the settlement, said that U.S. agencies did not accuse Binance of misappropriating any user funds or engaging in any market manipulation.

A Finance Magnates report found that crypto payment tools, such as the contactless payment platform Binance Pay and the crypto debit card Binance Card, increase financial inclusion by enabling people, who are unbanked or have limited access to traditional banking services, to utilize their crypto holdings in daily transactions.

The percentage of unbanked individuals in France decreased from 3% in 2011 to 0.8% in 2021, according to Statista.

Many people who do not have bank accounts are unable to pay the associated fees or might have a poor credit score, but through decentralized finance (DeFi), "unbanked" individuals can access financial services, such as borrowing and lending, trading assets, and earning interest, according to CoinTelegraph.

A survey conducted by France's Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) found that more French people have invested in cryptocurrency than have invested in stocks or exchange-traded funds (ETFs). AMF conducted the survey in the spring of 2023 among more than 1,000 French residents and released its findings in November. The survey found that 9.4% of the French population holds cryptocurrency, while 7.3% owns stocks, 5.4% owns bonds, 2.8% owns non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and 2.4% is invested in ETFs.

Malekan is the author of several books, including The Story of the Blockchain: A Beginner’s Guide to the Technology That Nobody Understands, according to the Columbia Business School website. He is an adjunct professor at Columbia where he teaches an introductory course to blockchain and cryptocurrency.

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