Key facts:
- A series of messages shared by the company generate confusion in the community.
- Binance loses to payment processors who fear a regulatory setback.
Binance clients based in the European Union reported difficulties when making their withdrawals in euros; and in response to this, the cryptocurrency exchange confirmed that everything is due to transfer problems through the Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA).
Binance’s support service issued the following message: “Regarding the issue you have mentioned, we regret to inform you that we have temporarily suspended euro deposits and withdrawals via SEPA.” This is in response to a user who expressed frustration at not being able to withdraw their funds to their bank account or make sales on the cryptocurrency exchange.
SEPA is the integrated cross-border payment network for euro transactions within the European Union and was established with the idea of facilitating fiat payment transfers between European countries.
However, Binance’s European banking partner, payment service provider Paysafe Payment Solutions, announced last June that it would withdraw its support for the cryptocurrency exchange.
The situation was captured in the same technical support message that was later removed from his Twitter account, but that some users still share. In it, Binance said that it did not have a specific time frame to restore SEPA transfers, adding that its payment provider “can no longer support these transactions.”
The customer then commented: “According to customer support, there is nothing you can do about this except wait for Binance to find a new payment provider. Allowing users to buy in euros, without warning them that they will be locked out immediately afterward, is what you would expect from fraudulent exchanges, not Binance.”
The cryptocurrency exchange later clarified that the customer support message had been posted in error and that the deposit and withdrawal service via SEPA will continue until September 25, only for customers with existing accounts. While Binance clients with accounts opened after June 25 will not be able to make deposits or withdrawals in euros through the exchange. Binance recommends the use of other alternatives while withdrawals or deposits in euros cannot be made.
Difficulties mount for Binance in Europe
However, confusion persists in the community regarding the series of difficulties that the Bitcoin exchange and other cryptocurrencies are going through. Especially now that Binance loses another payment processing partner. This is Checkout.com which provided services to you as a UK credit card processor.
Checkout.com offers a program to comply with the rules governing payment services in the European Union. They impose strict customer authentication requirements, and according to a Forbes report, Binance insisted on disabling this feature to increase trading volumes, which would have led them to flag millions of transactions as fraudulent.
Checkout.com’s divorce notice came just days after the cryptocurrency exchange announced it was shutting down its own merchant-centric fiat-to-crypto payment gateway Binance Connect (also known as Bifinity) on Aug. 16. Binance Connect was operated through a partnership with Checkout.com.
