Binance halts EUR trading for Paysafe users as banking partner pulls services

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, has advised its Paysafe users to convert their EUR balances into USDT before the end of October after the European banking partner withdrew its services from the platform.

Support for buying, selling, trading and investing in crypto via EUR ended on Binance today after Paysafe stopped processing EUR deposits on Monday, according to an announcement.

Binance described Paysafe’s decision as “sudden and inexplicable.” However, it had previously notified users in June that Paysafe would cease supporting the exchange on Sept. 25.

"Binance will be changing the provider for EUR deposits and withdrawals via Bank Transfer (SEPA). Our current partner, Paysafe, will no longer be providing these services to Binance users from Sept. 25, 2023,” a Binance spokesperson said at the time. “At that time, our 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.”

"Binance is changing its fiat partner for EUR services,” a Binance spokesperson told The Block via email today. “We are temporarily halting EUR spot trading for users who have previously signed up for fiat services with our former partner, Paysafe. Selling crypto to EUR will be also temporarily disabled. Most other Binance services, including withdrawing fiat to users’ bank accounts, remain unimpacted.”

However, Binance is yet to secure a replacement for Paysafe, noting in today’s announcement that it was working to integrate new fiat channels onto Binance soon. “This process will take several days to complete and we will provide regular updates to affected users to let them know when full functionality can be restored. We look forward to having our new fiat partner up and running as soon as possible.” the Binance spokesperson added. 

Binance partnered with the London-based payments company to resume Single Euro Payments Area bank transfers for customers in January 2022 after temporarily suspending SEPA transfers in 2021 due to “events beyond our control.” Paysafe previously ended GBP support for the exchange in May. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Block.

USDT conversion and service interruptions

Binance said users can convert their EUR balances in their accounts to the USDT stablecoin before Oct. 31. Meanwhile, users can still withdraw their EUR balances to their bank accounts.

The crypto exchange said Paysafe’s decision will cause a “brief interruption” to buying, selling, trading and investing services via EUR, though it remains unclear when alternative EUR support will return.

From today, users will no longer be able to buy or sell crypto using their EUR balances. However, they can still purchase crypto using EUR through their credit/debit cards.

Users will also not be able to engage in EUR spot trading. Any open orders on EUR spot trading pairs remaining were canceled by the exchange. Binance also terminated Spot Trading Bots services on EUR/USDT and EUR/BUSD trading pairs.

Binance Convert was set to EUR reduce-only mode — meaning users can convert EUR to other crypto through market orders but not the other way around, and limit orders were closed. Binance’s Auto-Invest EUR plans were also paused for Paysafe users.

Binance’s regulatory woes

Binance faced several regulatory issues in Europe this summer, announcing it was exiting the Netherlands after failing to acquire regulatory approval. It also applied to deregister its local entity in Cyprus and is reportedly under investigation in France for alleged money laundering.

However, earlier this week, Binance reopened its exchange services in Belgium, three months after the country’s regulator told it to cease operations.