Imposing a ban on the purchase of digital coins, a Bank in South Africa, Absa Bank, has prohibited clients from purchasing cryptocurrencies on the Binance crypto exchange. Absa Bank, one of the largest banks in the region, has taken the step owing to Binance’s non-compliance with its policies and procedures. Binance, on its part, claimed that this ban is not only limited to it as the bank has banned its clients from dealing with all firms in the digital currency space.
According to the local sources, clients could not process the payment to purchase the digital coins on Binance. While executing the purchase request, the message shown to clients read that their credit card had been temporarily blocked for online transactions. The message further guided the clients to go to the bank’s online page, the app, or contact the customer care executive by dialing the number at the back of the credit card.
When clients logged into their internet banking account to unlock their online purchase, the message displayed there denied any such lock been in place. This development comes close to the heel of a similar event that happened just days ago, where similar concerns related to Binance were expressed by the TSB Bank. According to this bank headquartered in the UK, the safety and security protocols adopted by Binance are not very strong and can lead to many scams in the future.
It is important to note that policymakers and regulators in South Africa are particularly concerned by the growing number of scams in the cryptocurrency space. The country had already experienced infamous incidents such as AfriCrypt and Mirror Trading International that still evoke very strong and unpleasant emotions among investors who lost millions of dollars to hackers. This also partially explains the cautious approach adopted by the banks in the country while dealing with crypto exchanges and allied businesses.
