Binance Visa debit card companies will shut down in the European Economic Area (EEA) on Dec. 20, in line with an announcement by the cryptocurrency trade on Oct. 20. Binance trade accounts shall be unaffected.
According to a message to clients posted on-line, Binance’s card issuer, Finansinės paslaugos “Contis” — or Contis Financial Services — will cease issuing the card. Contis is a Lithuanian digital cash establishment and foreign money trade operator owned by German banking-as-a-service platform Solaris Group, which is energetic in 30 European international locations.
The Binance Visa debit card converts crypto in customers’ Binance accounts into native currencies, thus permitting them to make use of crypto to pay for purchases in shops and on-line. The EEA contains all 27 European Union member states, together with Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
And right here goes the #Binance Visa Debit Card!
First Paysafe offering EUR on/offboarding, now Contis offering the debit card, what’s subsequent? pic.twitter.com/e7EF7G7CVN
— Michael ⚡️S⚡️ (@M_affirmed) October 20, 2023
The Binance Visa debit card was introduced in the EEA in September 2020. At the time, there were plans to introduce Binance cards in Russia and potentially the United States as effectively. A Binance spokesperson instructed Cointelegraph in an announcement:
“Although Binance users from around the world have enjoyed using [the Binance Visa debit] card to make day-to-day payments with crypto assets, only around 1% of our users are impacted by this change.”
The closure of the Binance Visa service is the most recent in a string of setbacks for Binance. The finish of Binance Visa card companies was introduced a day after the trade restored euro deposits and withdrawals, which had been unavailable for a month after funds processor Paysafe dropped the trade. Binance continues to be not onboarding new customers in the United Kingdom as a result of lack of a third-party service supplier.
Related: Visa taps into Solana to widen USDC payment capability
Binance.US suspended U.S. dollar deposits in June and warned that withdrawals would even be suspended. It partnered with MoonPay to allow U.S. customers to purchase Tether (USDT) on the trade. It introduced earlier this week that U.S. clients could withdraw dollars from their accounts by changing the fiat into stablecoin.
Mastercard ended its partnership with Binance in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Bahrain in September. At the time, regulatory scrutiny was prompt because the motivation for the breakup.
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