© Reuters. File image: A configuration showing a cryptocurrency with the Binance logo. Photo taken on November 10, 2022. REUTERS/Dado RovicWritten by Elizabeth Hocroft and Tom Wilson
LONDON (Reuters) – A company spokesperson said on Tuesday that the financial services have stopped its deposits and withdrawals in sterling, a month after the cryptocurrency exchange stopped making dollar transfers.
Binance has been informed by its sterling exchange partner, Paysafe, that it will be discontinuing its services from May 22, affecting all Binance customers, said a Binance spokesperson.
It added that sterling transfers for new users were suspended on Monday.
“Binance will ensure that affected users can continue to access their GBP balances,” the spokesperson said, adding that the change “affects less than 1% of Binance users.”
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange with more than 128 million customers, did not provide details on how many customers the move would affect.
Paysafe did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. The company provides the service via British payments network Faster Payments, which had no immediate comment.
The halt in pound transfers, first reported by cryptocurrency news outlet The Block, came after Binance last month suspended all dollar bank transfers amid a growing crackdown on the cryptocurrency by US authorities.
A spokesperson for Skrill, the Paysafe unit that works with Binance, told crypto site Decrypt that “the UK regulatory environment in relation to cryptocurrency is very challenging to provide this service at this time, and therefore this is a wise decision on our part made in an abundance of caution.” .
Britain’s financial watchdog said last year that it lacked the necessary powers to block Binance from accessing the faster payments network via PaySafe.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority warned consumers in June 2021 that Binance had “no form” of permission to provide UK-regulated services.
