Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has revealed that it will cease its Visa debit card services in the European Economic Area (EEA) on 20 December 2023. The announcement was made on 20 October 2023, and it was clarified that this development will not affect existing Binance accounts.
The discontinuation comes as a result of a decision by Contis Financial Services, the card issuer for Binance’s Visa debit card. Contis is a Lithuanian-based electronic money institution and currency exchange operator. It is a subsidiary of the German banking-as-a-service platform, Solaris Group, which operates in 30 European countries.
The Binance Visa debit card was designed to convert cryptocurrencies from users’ Binance accounts into local currencies. This feature enabled users to make purchases online and in physical stores using their crypto assets. The EEA includes all 27 member states of the European Union, along with Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway.
The card was initially launched in the EEA in September 2020. According to a statement from a Binance spokesperson, the discontinuation will have a minimal impact, affecting only around 1% of their global user base.
This latest move is part of a series of challenges that Binance has faced recently. Just a day before announcing the end of its Visa debit card services in the EEA, Binance had reinstated its euro deposits and withdrawals. These services had been suspended for a month after Paysafe, a payments processor, severed ties with the exchange. Additionally, Binance is currently not accepting new users from the United Kingdom due to losing a third-party service provider.
In other international developments, Binance’s U.S. arm suspended U.S. dollar deposits in June and had previously warned about potential withdrawal suspensions. To address this, the exchange partnered with MoonPay to allow U.S. users to purchase Tether USDT on the platform. Earlier this week, it was announced that U.S. customers could withdraw dollars by converting them into stablecoins.
Furthermore, Mastercard terminated its partnership with Binance in several countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Bahrain, in September 2023. Regulatory scrutiny was cited as a possible reason for this separation.
