Binance Suspends Services in Nigeria

The cryptocurrency exchange Binance declared that it will no longer offer any NGN-related services.

The company announced today that all leftover NGN balances in Binance users’ accounts will be immediately converted to USDT stablecoin on March 8 at 8:00 UTC. Users are recommended to withdraw NGN until then. On March 5, deposits will be stopped.

The cryptocurrency exchange stated as per an announcement post, “Binance will discontinue all Nigerian Naira (NGN) services as per the timeline below. Users are encouraged to withdraw NGN, trade their NGN assets or convert NGN into crypto prior to the discontinuation of these NGN services.“

Binance will no longer support NGN in any way for spot trading, P2P, Auto Invest, or Binance Pay.

Nigerian authorities started to worry in February about how cryptocurrency exchanges would affect the nation’s economy. Telecommunications providers have been forced by the government to restrict access to multiple sites, such as Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken.

Security officials had detained two Binance employees who had come to Nigeria to address the problem and question them about the regulation of the foreign exchange market.

As per unconfirmed media reports, Binance had been threatened with legal action if it did not pay Nigerian authorities $10 billion for manipulating the value of the naira. But this information was then refuted by the assistant to Nigerian President Bayo Onanuga as well as the exchange.

Furthermore, Binance CEO Richard Teng has been summoned by the Nigerian House of Representatives Committee on Financial Crimes to testify before the department by March 4th about allegations of money laundering and terrorism funding.

Earlier, Binance had faced legal issues in the US too. Binance Holdings Limited (Binance) had entered a guilty plea and agreed to pay more than $4 billion to end the Justice Department’s investigation into violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), and failure to register as a money transmitting business.

The founder and CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao had also resigned from the position after entering a guilty plea to violating the BSA by neglecting to operate an efficient anti-money laundering (AML) programme.

 

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