In a surprising turn of events, Mastercard has decided to terminate its partnership with Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, regarding the prepaid crypto card program.
The discontinuance comes as an aftermath of the lawsuits filed against Binance in the US which had led to increased scrutiny on the exchange.
Binance has had a cordial relationship with MasterCard since the card deal was struck in January 2023. However, MasterCard is going in the opposite direction due to legal challenges.
This means that users with Mastercard-linked Binance Cards will lose the ability to utilize them in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Bahrain, and other Middle Eastern countries starting from September 22.
Binance also stated that the Mastercard partnership will not be available for its users in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
The information concerning Latin America and the Middle East was made known by Binance Customer service a few days ago.
Speaking about the new discontinuance, Mastercard said that cardholders will be given enough time to transition any holdings in their Binance wallet to another infrastructure.
The largest crypto exchange according to trading volume and number of users, has been dealing with legal and regulatory hurdles for some time.
In March 2023, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against Binance and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao.
It stated that the company was serving US users the illegal products and also redirecting them away from the U.S. subsidiary towards the more lucrative international exchange.
“Defendants’ alleged willful evasion of U.S. law is at the core of the Commission’s complaint against Binance,” the commission said.
“The defendants’ own emails and chats reflect that Binance’s compliance efforts have been a sham and Binance deliberately chose – over and over – to place profits over following the law,”
Despite the regulatory battle with Binance, it has also stayed relentless as it expands to Japan, with a new subsidiary in the Asian nation. Binance became a fully registered crypto exchange in El Salvador this year.
