From February 8th, Binance users will not be able to make bank transfers using the United States dollar.
Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of daily trading volumes, has revealed that it plans to temporarily suspend all United States dollar (USD) bank transfers.
According to the tweet shared on February 6th, the move will come into effect on February 8th.
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The crypto exchange did not provide detailed information about what caused such a decision. However, in the tweet, the company stated:
<...> We are working hard to restart the service as soon as possible. All other methods of buying and selling crypto remain unaffected.
Binance founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Changpeng “CZ” Zhao also took to Twitter to comment on the news. In a tweet, CZ noted:
It is worth noting that USD bank transfers are leveraged by only 0.01% of our monthly active users. However, we appreciate that this is still a bad user experience and the team is working on quickly resolving this issue.
On top of that, Binance CEO highlighted that due to volatile market conditions, “some banks <are> withdrawing support for crypto, other banks are moving in.” Moreover, in the same Twitter thread, Zhao added that “some setbacks were expected from last year's incidents.”
It can be assumed that Binance’s CEO is talking about the decision made by its SWIFT partner, Signature Bank. At the end of January, the bank decided to no longer process transactions worth less than $100,000.
In the letter sent to its retail customers, Binance highlighted that the change will affect all users of US Dollar-held bank accounts who plan to purchase or sell crypto for less than $100,000 through the SWIFT system. However, the company emphasized that it is “actively seeking” to find a new SWIFT (USD) partner.
The suspension applies only to international Binance users from countries like Nigeria, Belgium, Japan, Mexico, etc. Binance.US confirmed that it “is not affected by <the> suspension.”
