Santander follows Barclays in blocking payments to Binance

In an email sent to customers yesterday, Santander explained it was trying to protect against fraud, following the FCA’s warning

Binance has come up against various hurdles lately, with regulators in the UK, Japan and the Cayman Islands all issuing warnings against the exchange. This has led some banks to try and block their customers from using Binance.

Yesterday, Santander began stopping payments to Binance “wherever possible”, although there are no restrictions on payments from Binance to Santander accounts for the time being. The bank explained in an email sent to customers yesterday that it had taken this action to protect customers from fraud, following a warning from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) last month.

“We’re taking this step as we want to do everything we can to protect you and help keep your money safe,” the email read. “We’ll continue to monitor the situation, and let you know if anything changes.”

Santander stressed that crypto assets could be high risk and crypto investors likely would not have access to the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme if things went wrong.

The bank added, “In recent months we have seen a large increase in customers in the UK becoming the victims of cryptocurrency fraud.”

This comes a matter of days after Barclays blocked credit and debit card payments to Binance. The crypto exchange responded earlier this week on Twitter, suggesting that the bank’s actions were “based on what appears to be an inaccurate understanding of events.”

Binance added, “The FCA notice relates to BML [Binance Markets Limited], which is a company incorporated in the UK and regulated by the FCA. BML is a separate legal entity and does not offer any products or services via binance.com.”

On Wednesday, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao shared a letter on the Binance blog in which he reflected on the exchange’s progress and its next steps in light of the recent regulatory difficulties.

Future aims for Binance include forming more compliance partnerships, expanding the exchange’s international compliance team, and better complying with local regulations by localising its operations and business.

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