Binance Card shuts down in Latin America, Middle East

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, said on Thursday it will discontinue its crypto debit card for users in Latin America and the Middle East. from Sept. 21.

Fast facts

• Binance Card is funded with crypto assets and used to pay for goods like traditional debit cards. Only 1% of its customers in Latin America and Middle East will be affected by the service halt, the exchange’s in a Twitter response via its customer support account.
• “Binance accounts around the world are not affected. Where available, users can also shop with crypto and send crypto using Binance Pay, a contactless, borderless and secure cryptocurrency payment technology designed by Binance,” Binance said.
• The development comes days after the exchange announced the launch of Binance Pay, its contactless payment service, in Brazil.
• Meanwhile, Binance faces issues with payment partners. Earlier this month, London-based payment processor Checkout.com terminated its contract with Binance due to concerns over money-laundering and compliance. Binance in June said that Paysafe Payment Solutions, its euro banking partner, will stop offering its services from Sept. 25.
• Last week, Binance announced that it was shutting down its cryptocurrency payment service Binance Connect, a fiat-to-crypto payment infrastructure.
• Binance did not respond to Forkast’s request for comment.

Author profile

Pradipta Mukherjee

Pradipta Mukherjee is a business reporter and has worked for Bloomberg News and Business Standard in India. An MBA and a post-graduate in Economics, Mukherjee focuses on financial markets and corporates. She is a Mary Morgan Hewett award recipient for Women in Journalism. She has also won the Jefferson Fellowship; the Thomson Reuters Foundation fellowship on ‘Social Media and Digital Journalism’ at The Chinese University of Hong Kong; the Kiplinger Fellowship at Ohio University, USA; and most recently, the National Press Foundation’s fellowship on ‘International Trade.’

pradipta.mukherjee@forkast.news

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Yohan Yun

Yohan is an Assignment Editor at Forkast and has worked as an assistant reporter covering stories in Asia for media publications such as Bloomberg BNA and Forbes, on topics related to Korea-US FTA, technology, environment, 2017 tax legislation amendments.

yohan.yun@forkast.news @hyoseopyun Yohan Yun

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