Australia’s oldest bank bans payments to Binance

Westpac, Australia’s oldest bank, announced a prohibition connected cryptocurrency transactions to definite exchanges connected May 18. The slope said that it is blocking a fig of crypto exchanges arsenic portion of a proceedings to “reduce scam losses.”

According to interior Westpac data, fractional of each scam losses travel from concern scams, and one-third of each scam payments are transferred to cryptocurrency exchanges. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Scamwatch besides said past period that concern scams constituted the largest information of scams reported to Scamwatch, ReportCyber, the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange, IDCare, and ASIC.

The bank’s determination to artifact transactions to crypto exchanges could perchance prevention customers millions of dollars, Westpac Group Executive of Customer Services and Technology, Scott Collary said.

Collary added:

“Often our customers lone observe they’ve been scammed aft the wealth has near the country, making betterment highly difficult.

The proceedings of our caller information measures volition amended support customers from scams. In particular, it volition people concern scams, which person a devastating interaction connected our customers.”

While the slope did not explicitly sanction Binance, the speech is believed to beryllium impacted by it. Chris Whittingham, wide manager of hazard and fraud operations astatine Westpac, told the Australian Financial Review that proceeds from scams are usually sent to “high-risk” overseas exchanges.

Binance Australia had its derivatives trading licence canceled past month. The speech is besides nether probe by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) for perchance violating its licence by providing derivatives trading to retail Australian traders.

Trouble connected aggregate fronts

Earlier today, Binance Australia announced that it tin nary longer process PayID Australian Dollar deposits. This is due to the fact that a third-party work provider, Cuscal, restricted access.

Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao are besides facing a suit successful the U.S. by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The suit filed successful March alleges that Binance is operating an amerciable speech and violated marketplace laws.

At the time, a Binance spokesperson called the suit “unexpected and disappointing” and said that the speech had been cooperating with regulators for 2 years.

Last month, CFTC Chairman Rostin Benham said that Binance willfully and deliberately broke marketplace laws by soliciting and offering futures contracts and derivatives to U.S. customers.