By Adedapo Adesanya
The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has announced plans to discontinue its crypto-backed debit card in Latin America and the Middle East, two of the world’s emerging markets.
This is according to a post on X, formerly Twitter, by its customer support team on Thursday, but it did not specify when it would commence.
According to crypto information platform Coindesk, the card service will be terminated in the Middle East tomorrow (Friday, August 25) and in Latin America on Thursday, September 21, but it did not provide a reason for the decision, though it reported that less than 1 per cent of its users in the regions would be affected.
The debit card allows users to use their crypto assets to make transactions in shops or online as they would with a debit card issued by their bank.
The card had not been available in Latin America for up to two years before the company decided to pull the plug. It was rolled out in the region’s second-biggest country, Argentina, last August and in Brazil, the largest, in January.
The move follows shortly after the exchange shut its crypto payments service, Binance Connect, which allowed merchants to accept payments in cryptocurrency.
The decision was taken by Binance in order to refocus on its main products, the exchange said earlier this month.
Binance has been embroiled in many controversies this year. In June, it announced that it was leaving the Netherlands after failing to get the country’s regulator to issue a virtual asset service provider (VASP) license, which attests that it meets anti-money laundering (AML) guidelines.
Likewise, it faced challenges in France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Lithuania, Cyprus, and the US – all within the last six months.
Dipo Olowookere