The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) would have rejected the license requested by the cryptoasset platform Binance to hold cryptoassets, according to an exclusive report by the newspaper ‘Finance Forward’.
According to this German media, the requirements of the financial regulator would have been too demanding and, according to sources familiar with the matter, BaFin would have communicated its decision to Binance before officially announcing it, so it is possible that the entity may withdraw the application before receiving the firm refusal from the supervisor.
This license was necessary for Binance to operate and expand in the first economy of the European Union, although the company “is still working to comply with the requirements” of BaFin, since it is a very “detailed” process.
This would not be the first setback on the European continent for Binance, as on Friday last week, Belgium’s Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) ordered the cessation “with immediate effect” of its operations in the Central European country.
“The FSMA finds that Binance is offering and providing in Belgium currency exchange services between virtual currencies and legal tender, as well as e-wallet, from countries that are not members of the European Economic Area [EEA],” the financial regulator alleged at the time. “The FSMA has therefore ordered Binance to cease, with immediate effect, to offer and provide any of these services in Belgium,” it added.
The agency explained that both natural and legal persons subject to laws outside the European Economic Area are prohibited from providing as a professional activity these services in Belgium, “even if on a secondary or ancillary basis.” Infringing the ban, the FSMA clarified, would constitute an offense punishable under Article 136 of the Belgian Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing.
Separately, it emerged today that the British digital payments company Paysafe will stop offering support to the cryptocurrency platform Binance for euro-denominated transactions as of September 25.
Thus, Binance will no longer be able to conduct transactions through the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) network after a Paysafe spokesperson informed that, after undertaking a “strategic review”, his company and Binance “are working to jointly implement in an orderly and fair manner the end of this service in the coming months”.
For its part, Binance has already informed that it will seek an alternative partner and has assured that “all methods of depositing and withdrawing other legal tender currencies, as well as the buying and selling of cryptoassets on Binance.com, will not be affected”.
Picture Copyright: peshkova
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