Westpac bank bans Binance for its clients

Australian bank Westpac has banned its clients from depositing money into Binance. Another blow for CZ given the ongoing lawsuits by the CFTC in the United States.

Binance abandoned in the tropics

Westpac’s desertion was almost simultaneously followed by payment company PayID.

Australia’s second-largest bank has placed Binance on its “high-risk” exchange list. Westpac accuses the exchange of knowingly facilitating money laundering.

“We’ve determined that high-risk exchanges are predominantly where scam money has ended up,” says Chris Whittingham, CEO at Westpac. “Digital exchanges have a legitimate role to play, but we have blocked access to some overseas exchanges that are used more frequently than others for scams.”

Whittingham argues that his bank’s data shows that shitcoin scams account for half of all scams. And one-third of that money is transferred directly to exchanges, reports journalist Jessica Sier for the Financial Review.

It must be admitted that Binance is indeed the biggest shitcoin factory in history…

In addition to Westpac’s hostility, Binance clients have also been informed of the end of deposits via PayID. The firm shifted the blame to its service provider Cuscal, which has made no communication.

“Deposits by bank transfers are no longer available to Binance users in Australia due to a decision made by our third-party service provider,” said PayID. “Bank transfer withdrawals will also be impacted, and we will advise users on timeline when this is confirmed.”

These new setbacks come in the wake of the much more troubling lawsuit filed by the CFTC. The U.S. financial regulator accuses Binance of deliberately circumventing the law.

“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,” the complaint reads.

The CFTC is also suing Binance “for violating trading rules.” The exchange allegedly engaged in suspicious proprietary trading transactions. And this was done through 300 trading accounts associated with Changpeng Zhao, who is directly targeted by the lawsuit.