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Binance drops sterling transfers

By Jonathan Easton

Binance, the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, is putting a stop to sterling deposits and withdrawals.

The news, confirmed by a Binance spokesperson on Tuesday, comes a month after the company put a similar halt to dollar transfers.

Paysafe, Binance’s partner for sterling transfers, has informed the company that it will halt its services from May 22 in a move which will impact all 128 million Binance customers. Users who signed up for Binance after March 13 are unable to make sterling transfers.

In comments to Reuters, the spokesperson for Binance said that the company “will ensure that affected users are still able to access their GBP balances,” and that the change "affects less than 1% of Binance users."

The company is currently working to find an “alternative solution” for sterling transfers, the spokesperson said.

It remains unclear how important sterling funding is to Binance, with the company infamous for keeping the finances of its core business hidden from public view.

A spokesperson for Paysafe told crypto news site 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."

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) warned Brits last year that Binance lacks “any form” of permission to offer services which are regulated in the UK.

Binance is also currently facing scrutiny from the US Justice Department for suspected money laundering and sanctions violations. The company is expected to pay penalties to resolve investigations from the US into the company.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission recently also told Binance it was considering action against it when it issued its BUSD stable coin – a move which marked around $6 billion in outflows.

The company’s chief executive Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao attracted headlines in late 2022 when he announced that Binance would acquire collapsed crypto exchange FTX, before subsequently pulling out of a deal following due diligence.

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