Santander UK, a British bank owned by the Spanish Santander Group, has decided to block all retail payments to Binance, a major cryptocurrency exchange, joining Barclays in the campaign to prevent customers from sending money to the firm. The maneuver comes in the wake of the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ban on the crypto company to operate within the British territory.
In an email sent to customers on Thursday, Santander UK said: “Keeping our customers safe is a top priority, so we have decided to prevent payments to Binance following the FCA’s warning to consumers. In recent months we have seen a large increase in UK customers becoming the victims of cryptocurrency fraud.” Still, the bank will allow customers to withdraw money from the exchange without issues so far. According to Financial Times, Binance expressed its disappointment on the Santander UK’s decision, as it argued that the firm takes compliance measures with its users “very seriously.”
Early this week, Barclays sent an SMS notification to its customers about the decision to suspend temporarily all the card transactions going to Binance from the United Kingdom. “As you’ve made a payment to Binance this year, we wanted to let you know that we’re stopping payments made by credit/debit card to them until further notice. This is to help keep your money safe,” the warning noted. Moreover, a spokesperson from the British bank clarified: “This action does not impact on the ability for customers to withdraw funds from Binance.”
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NatWest Also Blocking Payments Sent to Binance
Also, NatWest was another company that announced last week that it decided to block payments to a “small number” of crypto exchanges. However, it didn’t name specifically Binance nor disclosed the complete list of the firms affected by the measure. But Binance’s customers told Financial Times that they could not send payments to the exchange as of press time.
Recently, the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (UKNF) issued a warning about Binance, noting that as Binance Markets Limited is a cryptocurrencies exchange, such a market “is neither regulated nor subject to supervision” in the country.
