P2P digital currency exchanges have reportedly assisted crypto traders with circumventing globally-enforced sanctions against Russia’s banking institutions.
Crypto exchange Binance‘s recent activities might worsen its regulatory challenges in the US. The recent crackdown attempts to place a ban on transactions completed with payment cards that have been issued by Russian banking institutions such as Rosbank and Tinkoff Bank.
As widely reported, Binance has halted support for P2P tranasactions from a number of sanctioned Russian banking institutions. This update comes afte news broker earlier this week that the company’s peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange had not implemented global sanctions rules/guidelines against arious banks from Russia.
And after several digital asset platforms had halted or significantly restricted Russian Ruble-based financial services under the escalating pressure of global sanctions, as of late, Russia’s cryptocurrency traders have started to become more active on P2P platforms.
As reported by various media outlets, Binance proceeded to stop working with Rosbank, Tinkoff, and several other Russia-based banking institutions.
However, the platforms that support Russian Ruble to crypto-asset swaps between consumers are challenging global santcions. Recently, the WSJ revealed that Binance had apparently been supporting trading of Rubles for crypto which allegedly included activity from sanctioned banking service providers from Russia. And amongst them were some of Russia’s largest credit card service firms including Tinkoff Bank as well as Rosbank.
As stated in the update, not until this past week, banking account holders with sanctioned service providers had actually been able to acquire cryptocurrencies with their payment cards.
Banking institutions had been referred to by their respective colors instead of their actual/official name in what appeared to be an intentional effort to conceal the real payment options being used by clients.
For instance, banking cards that had reportedly been provided by Sber as well as Tinkoff had been listed as “green” and “yellow” payment options via the P2P trading service.
As reported, Binance is dealing with an extensive probe in the United States for the alleged financial crime of not honoring sanctions guidelines.
And during a time when such accusations have been made against Binance, these latest updates could further exacerbate a challenging environment for the crypto firm.
It’s worth noting that on August 25, 2023, Binance had proceeded to block transactions performed with payment cards that have been issued by five major sanctioned banking institutions. Notably, the exchange platform has now prevented Russian clients from completing peer-to-peer transfers with non-ruble denominated fiat currencies.
According to reports from BeInCrypto’s Russian news media outlet, ByBit has also banned certain payment cards that are maintained with various Russia-based banking institutions as permissible peer to peer payment methods.
The update further reveals that it is no longer possible to complete P2P transactions via ByBit with payment cards that are provided by a number of banking institutions.
ByBit may have also enforced additional limitations on Tinkoff as well as Sberbank-issued payment cards.
When questioned regarding this move, ByBit team members said that the trading firm will not support transactions with certain banks. As revealed in the update, Tinkoff as well as Sberbank-issued cards may strictly be used by consumers that have cleared the applicable KYC requirements. The stricter regulatory guidelines are also applicable to various other service providers such as YuMoney.