Over the past few days, there has been a lot of news regarding the termination of Visa and Mastercard partnership with Binance. We have collected everything known for now in this article.
Mastercard withdraws Binance cards in Latin America and Near East
Mastercard and Binance began collaborating about a year ago. In August 2022, they launched the Binance Card for residents of Argentina. This card, linked to a Binance account, allows users to pay with cryptocurrency in places where card payments are available: shops, cafes, online shopping, etc. The process of converting cryptocurrency to fiat happens automatically at the moment of payment.
Throughout the year-long cooperation, the programme also became available in Brazil, Colombia, and Bahrain. However, recent reports from Reuters and Bloomberg suggest that the Mastercard and Binance duo is coming to an end, and support for these cards will conclude on September 21.
While the exact reasons for this decision are not disclosed, Visa and Mastercard continue to maintain their relationships with Bybit and Gemini exchanges for the same type of cryptocards. Perhaps, regulatory uncertainties about Binance could be a contributing factor.
Binance has confirmed the withdrawal from the four mentioned countries. The exchange claims that only 1% of users will be affected.
On August 29, Binance announced the launch of “Send Cash” in Latin America, so that users could transfer crypto to bank accounts in fiat via Binance Pay in 9 countries: Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, Argentina, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Dominican Republic, Panama, and Mexico.
Visa stops issuing of Binance cards in Europe
The Bloomberg article also mentions Visa and cites a Binance representative, who says that "Visa stopped issuing new co-branded cards with Binance in Europe as of July".
The cooperation between the two companies began in 2020 with the launch of Binance Visa Cards in Europe. The reasons for the termination are also not specified. However, it can be assumed that regulatory pressure on Binance has affected this, too. At the same time, there is no news about the termination of such cooperation with the Gate.io exchange.
Currently, there is also no further information about potential withdrawing options like “Send Cash” for European users.
If you missed the news on Binance’s problems with the watchdogs, read our article: What’s up with Binance: is it really going to collapse?
By the way, you can always buy BTC, ETH, USDT, and other popular cryptos with your bank card or SEPA on itez.shop.
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