14th March 2023 – (New York) Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency platform, has announced the suspension of sterling deposits and withdrawals from 22nd May. The move comes a month after the company stopped dollar transfers. The suspension was prompted by Binance’s partner for sterling transfers, Paysafe, which informed the crypto exchange that it would cease its services. The halt in sterling transfers impacts all Binance customers, with new user transfers stopped from Monday. However, the company assured its users that the change would affect less than 1% of them and that it would ensure affected users could still access their GBP balances.
Paysafe, which provides the service via the UK payments network Faster Payments, did not respond immediately to a request for comment. The move follows Binance’s decision to suspend all dollar bank transfers last month in the face of an increasing crackdown on cryptocurrencies by US authorities. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has previously warned consumers that Binance does not hold “any form” of permission to offer services regulated by Britain.