Binance Australia received 24 hours’ notice prior to debanking
During his speech at the Australian Blockchain Week, Ben Rose, Binance’s regional manager, revealed that the Australia’s team received an abrupt notification in the middle of the night, stating that the exchange would be “cut off” from Australia’s banking system.
This unexpected action affected approximately 1 million customers located in Australia, according to Rose. He emphasized that there was no prior warning, consultation, or avenue for redress provided before this decision was taken.
The sudden severance from the banking system has undoubtedly posed challenges for Binance Australia in conducting its operations and serving its customer base, he added.
“We received 24 hours’ notice of debanking at 11:30 pm in the evening, that was later turned into 12 hours, and so we had our banking cut off. The reasons given were not entirely clear and didn’t look that great in the media,” said Rose.
In his on-stage interview, Binance’s regional manager assured the audience that the loss of their banking partner had not had a significant impact on their business operations. Rose’s remarks imply that that Australian users quickly adapted to the situation by utilizing alternative methods, such as bank cards, for making purchases and deposits on the platform.
Earlier in May, the Australian arm of Binance told its customers that it will be unable to deposit or withdraw Australian dollars (AUD) using bank transfers. Asa result, the exchange suspended all trading pairs involving the Aussie. In order to facilitate withdrawal and trading operations, users can convert their AUD balance into stablecoin USDT.
Meanwhile, Binance Australia said that it was working hard to find an alternative provider to continue offering AUD deposits and withdrawals. The company also noted that credit and debit card purchases were still operational in its peer-to-peer marketplace.
Australia’s largest bank, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), also introduced new anti-scam measures that include blocking certain payments to specific cryptocurrency exchanges.
As part of these measures, the bank now holds specific payments to crypto exchanges for a period of 24 hours. Furthermore, the CBA plans to apply a monthly transfer limit of A$10,000 (US$6,666) to crypto exchanges. However, the spokesperson for the lender didn’t provide clarification on whether these measures will be applicable to all crypto exchanges or only a limited number of them.
The move follows Westpac’s decision last month to ban customers from transferring funds to Binance, citing its efforts to reduce losses from scams. The Australian big four bank said the move comes after its internal data revealed that investment scams constituted approximately half of all scam losses, with one-third of scam payments being directly transferred to cryptocurrency exchanges.
