Binance Users Locked out of Sterling Transactions on Tuesday

Fazzaco learned that customers of Binance, a leading Blockchain ecosystem and digital asset exchange, have been locked out of arranging withdrawal and deposit requests in pounds using one of the main UK payments systems.

The outage happened three days after the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) banned the crypto exchange from operating in Britain, but it is not clear whether the incident is related to recent FCA intervention.

According to the exchange, Binance Markets Limited(BML) is a separate legal entity and does not offer any products or services via the Binance.com website. The FCA UK notice has no direct impact on the services provided on Binance.com, which can still be accessed by UK-based users despite the Financial Conduct Authority’s move.

The customers said on Tuesday that they were unable to withdraw or deposit sterling at the exchange, both via the Faster Payments network or bank cards. The site stated that sterling transactions using bank cards had been “suspended for maintenance”. This effectively stops two methods for pulling sterling from the platform, according to Binance’s website.

The cryptocurrency firm did not comment on when or if card payments would be restored.

Recently, Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) last Friday issued a warning against Binance for offering cryptocurrency exchange service in the country without registration. Moreover, Binance decided to stop offering its services to clients from Ontario, Canada​ this Monday, due to mounting regulatory obligations for crypto businesses in this province.