Binance has limited its fiat withdrawals in Europe, seemingly due to issues related to Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) transfers.
On 20 August, the exchange posted a message on X (formerly Twitter) saying that it had suspended euro withdrawals and deposits via SEPA. According to this, Binance didn’t have a specific time frame for restoring SEPA transfers, adding that its payment provider “can no longer support these transactions”.
However, this post was soon deleted in what Binance called a customer support message “sent in error”. It has now also clarified that “SEPA deposit and withdrawal service will continue until 25 September”, as originally communicated.
As per reports, this now-deleted post was made in reply to a Binance user in Europe, who claimed to have bought a “large amount of EUR on Binance” a few days ago. This person was unable to withdraw the euros to their bank account or sell them on the crypto exchange platform due to the closure of their Paysafe account.
Talking about the issue, they added: “According to customer support there is nothing I can do about it except waiting for Binance to find a new payment provider. Letting users buy EUR, just to block them from accessing it right afterwards is what you would expect from scam exchanges, not Binance.”
Last month, Binance made an announcement saying that its current partner for euro banking deposits and withdrawals, Paysafe Payment Solutions, will discontinue supporting the exchange from September 2023. This euro support provided by Paysafe is scheduled to end after 25 September 2023.
While the name of the new provider has not been revealed, the exchange did mention that it would switch to a new service provider for euro deposits and withdrawals via SEPA bank transfer.
At the time of discontinued service, Binance said that: “Users will need to update the banking details used to deposit to their Binance accounts and may be required to accept new terms and conditions to continue using SEPA services after this date.”
However, this is not the first time Binance is facing withdrawal-related issues in Europe. Back in May this year, the crypto exchange temporarily closed $BTC withdrawals due to a “large volume of pending transactions”. The large backlog of pending withdrawals also made Binance to halt Bitcoin withdrawals for the second time that day.
It tried fixing the issue by replacing the pending $BTC withdrawal transactions with a higher fee in order for them to get picked up by mining pools. The issue happened just a day after Binance had experienced its first withdrawal outage. This was a result of Bitcoin mempool having a backlog of around 400,000 transactions waiting to be processed.
$BNB, which is the main cryptocurrency that is used to trade and pay fees on the Binance crypto exchange, was on a price decline as it traded in the red at press time. Changing hands for $208, the coin has fallen by over 13% in the last seven days.
