Binance Has Banned South Africans From Using Most Of Its Services

Leading cryptocurrency exchange, Binance has revealed in an official announcement today, that it will halt derivatives offerings to its South African users.

Binance noted that the new changes are in a bid to comply with local regulations, and therefore, South African customers will no longer be able to lay hold on certain derivatives on its service platform.

While the ruling goes into effect immediately, existing customers have been allowed a 90 days ultimatum to close their holdings on affected derivative products such as; Margins, Futures, Leverage Tokens, and Options.

Per the announcement, customers will no longer be allowed to open new cryptocurrency accounts for affected products.

Meanwhile, to avoid sudden liquidation, South Africans using these product platforms are still allowed to top-up their margin balances.

However, both old and new customers are not allowed to open new positions or increase existing ones.

Why The Halt?

The development follows a notice that the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) in September met with Binance to iron out issues surrounding regulatory matters.

Today’s announcement may be an indication that the engagement did not yield results in favor of Binance, hence the decision.

If customers refuse to heed these instructions on or before January 6th, 2022, Binance noted that they risk losing their positions, as they will not be able to manually reduce their position or even gain access to them.

Binance Feud With Regulatory Watchdogs

Binance has been dealing with regulatory issues from regulatory bodies in different countries where it carries out its operations. 

That’s not all. Binance has been warned by almost all the countries in the world, including Australia, Thailand, Germany,  and the United States of America, to desist from offering its services to residents.

The increased surveillance from regulators had prompted the crypto exchange to resort to blocking some of its services from residents in most countries, with the most recent one being Singapore.

At this time, Binance is doing all it can to provide its users with a sustainable ecosystem on all sides of digital assets and blockchain technology.

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