As of Wednesday, it will no longer be possible to make bank transfers in dollars with Binance. However, the platform wants to reassure that the measure is only temporary, and that only a minority of users are affected
Binance to pause dollar bank transfers
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced that as of Wednesday, February 8, bank transfers denominated in dollars will be temporarily discontinued:
From February 8th, we will temporarily suspend all USD bank transfers.
Only a small proportion of our users will be impacted by this and we are working hard to restart the service as soon as possible.
All other methods of buying and selling crypto remain unaffected.
– Binance (@binance) February 6, 2023
This measure applies to both deposits and withdrawals, and is limited to dollar transfers only, meaning that all other currencies and credit card transactions continue to function normally.
It should also be noted that only Binance’s global platform is affected, so Binance.US is not impacted by the measure, as its customer service department has repeatedly certified on Twitter:
We are NOT suspending $USD withdrawals & deposits on February 8. This news is only for https://t.co/yyaz1ed4VD users. We are completely separate entities from https://t.co/yyaz1ed4VD
– Binance.US Customer Support (@BinanceUShelp) February 6, 2023
The causes of this suspension of transfers
While Binance has not, a priori, given a precise reason for the suspension of dollar bank transfers, it is interesting to look at Signature Bank. Indeed, earlier in January, under the guise of reducing its exposure to cryptocurrencies, the bank decided to stop processing Binance transactions above $100,000 via the SWIFT system. This restriction was announced to affected customers and took effect on 1 February.
As a result, the platform founded by Changpeng Zhao (CZ) is looking for a new partner to process these types of transfers. According to information provided by a spokesperson to several media outlets, 0.01% of the platform’s users would be affected:
“It’s worth noting that only 0.01% of our monthly active users are using USD bank transfers, but we’re working hard to get the service back up and running as soon as possible “
While the news may raise questions after high-profile episodes such as FTX, this is a very different case and is not a liquidity crisis on the part of Binance. This is not the first time that such an event has occurred. In the summer of 2021, all SEPA credit transfers were suspended as the exchange faced regulatory issues. The situation then began to return to normal in January 2022, and was fully resolved by March.
