By Elizabeth Howcroft and Tom Wilson
LONDON, March 14 (Reuters) – Binance will suspend sterling deposits and withdrawals, a spokesperson for the company said on Tuesday, a month after it halted dollar transfers.
Binance has been informed by its partner for GBP transfers, Paysafe, that it will be discontinuing its services starting May 22, the spokesperson said, affecting all of the company’s customers. UK currency transfers for new users stopped on Monday, he said.
“Binance will ensure that affected users can continue to access their GBP balances,” the spokesperson said, adding that the change “affects less than 1% of Binance users.”
The world’s largest cryptocurrency platform, with more than 128 million customers, did not give details on how many users the measure will affect.
Paysafe did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. The company offers the service through UK payment network Faster Payments, which also had no immediate comment.
The halt to pound transfers, first reported by crypto news outlet The Block, comes after Binance last month suspended all dollar bank transfers amid a growing crackdown on cryptocurrencies by US authorities.
A spokesperson for Skrill, the unit of Paysafe that works with Binance, told cryptocurrency website Decrypt that “the UK regulatory environment in relation to cryptocurrencies is too challenging to offer this service in at this time, so it’s a prudent decision on our part taken with an abundance of caution.”
The UK financial watchdog said last year that it had no power to block Binance from accessing the fast payment network via PaySafe.
(Edited in Spanish by Carlos Serrano)