By Elizabeth Howcroft Tom Wilson
LONDONReuters) -Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency platform with over 128 million customers, announced Tuesday that it will be halting all withdrawals and deposits in sterling. This comes a month after the crypto exchange stopped dollar transfers.
A spokesperson for the company revealed that a partner in sterling transfers had informed Binance that they would also be suspending their services. “It impacts all Binance customers and will take effect on May 22,” the spokesperson stated.
Binance said that new users were not able to transfer sterling on Monday, and added that they would ensure that those affected by the change would be able to access their GBP balances. The spokesperson noted that this would impact less than 1% of Binance users.
Paysafe, the company that offers this service through the UK payments network Faster Payments, did not respond immediately to a request for comment, nor did Faster Payments. Reuters.
This news, first reported by the crypto news outlet The Block, follows Binance’s decision to stop all dollar bank transfers last month due to a crackdown on crypto by U.S. officials.
A spokesperson for the Paysafe unit Skrill, which works with Binance, told crypto website Decrypt that “the UK regulatory environment in relation to crypto is too challenging to offer this service at this time and so this is a prudent decision on our part taken in an abundance of caution.”
Britain’s Financial watchdog stated last year that it did not have the power to stop fraud, and it warned consumers in June 2021 that Binance did not hold “any form” of services that can be offered with permission in Britain.
(Reporting By Tom Wilson Elizabeth HowcroftEditing by Jason Neely)