Binance To Discontinue All Naira Services After $10bn Fine By FG

Binance Nigeria has announced that it will discontinue all its Naira services from March 8 following the clampdown on the company by the federal government.

Binance shared the decision in a statement on its app.

The company, which is the world’s largest crypto platform, said it will stop naira deposits after March 5, while withdrawals will end on March 8.

“Any remaining NGN balances in users’ Binance accounts will be automatically converted to USDT,” the exchange said in a statement on Tuesday.

Binance also revealed that it will delist all existing Naira spot trading pairs on March 7, adding the naira will be removed from the list of supported payment options on Binance Pay.

At the last Monetary Policy Meeting of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the apex bank governor, Olayemi Cardoso accused Binance of executing $26bn transaction which he described as “suspicious.”

“In the case of Binance, in the last one year alone, $26bn has passed through Binance Nigeria from sources and users who we cannot adequately identify. There is a lot that is going on now as a result of the collaboration between the different agencies which includes the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Police and the Office of the National Security Adviser,” Cardoso said.

Later in the week, two Binance executives were held by the Nigerian authorities over the matter.

The Nigerian government had also imposed a $10bn fine on the company, according to a presidential aide, Bayo Onanuga.

Onanuga claimed that Binance is not registered in Nigeria and has no presence in the country.

He alleged that people used the platform to arbitrarily fix dollar-naira rates; a practice he said negatively impacted the value of the local currency.