After suspending withdrawals in Brazilian fiat currency Real (BRL) for 20 days on its platform, Binance resumed its service this Wednesday (6). Deposits were made available again on Monday (4). However, the withdrawal system still has some restrictions for users.
Only individual clients with low trading volume can withdraw their money. Legal entities are still restricted since June 17.
Besides this distinction, withdrawals are also unavailable within Binance’s mobile app. In tests done by Portal do Bitcoin, withdrawals in Brazilian Real were only available through Binance’s website. Business accounts, often created by other enterprises or institutions, still cannot withdraw or deposit Real on Binance.
For Brazilian residents who wanted to withdraw through PIX — the instant payment system that integrates Brazilian banks —, Binance only supports payments with PIX which are registered with a CPF number — equivalent to an “Individual Taxpayer Registration”.
Users cannot send money through other PIX registries at the moment, like e-mails or phone numbers. For withdrawals, the exchange is also charging a fixed fee of R$ 3,50 (or U$ 0,64) — a value possibly directed to Latam Gateway, Binance’s new payment processor in the country.
When asked by Portal do Bitcoin, Binance did not explain the reason for the limitations, but said that “the process of integrating the new payments partner is ongoing and will be concluded soon and transactions (deposits and withdrawals) will be soon normalized”.
The partial resumption of the services was made possible thanks to Latam Gateway, Binance’s new payment provider in Brazil, that is replacing Capitual and Acesso Bank, its former partner.
Since Latam Gateway is not a payment institution regulated by the Central Bank of Brazil, it depends on the services of Banco BS2 to offer withdrawals and deposits to Binance.
The key difference in the new service is that now clients need to inform their CPF every time they transfer money — which could mean that withdrawals and deposits are still not an automated task, but a manual one.
Binance’s financial woes in Brazil
Since June 17, Binance users in Brazil were unable to withdraw or send money to the exchange using their local currency.
The halting of the services was unexpected. On that day, Binance had confirmed that its system was “unstable due to a new policy imposed by the Central Bank of Brazil”.
The problem got even worse that same day, when Binance announced that Capitual would no longer be its payment provider.
The ending of the long-time relationship between Binance and Capitual was not amicable. After the exchange announced on June 24 that Latam Gateway was its new payment processor in Brazil, Capitual published a statement to counter information disclosed by Binance.
Capitual states that “services provided to international exchanges [Kucoin and Huobi] are up and running, so the information that it had suspended operations to Binance is inappropriate”. The company implies that the decision of suspending its services — that are still available — was Binance’s.
Now, there is a lawsuit involving the freezing of R$ 450 million (or U$ 82,5 million) on accounts owned by Capitual — as requested by Binance.
On June 22, the Court of Appeals of São Paulo suspended a decision of first instance that would obligate Capitual to keep offering its services to Binance, or else it would have to pay a fine of R$ 10.000 (U$ 1,833) per day.
In the first instance, Binance had obtained a ruling that binded Capitual to keep offering withdrawals and deposits in Brazilian Real — suspended since June 17. This decision is kept secret by judicial rule.
*Translated from Portuguese by Daniela Pereira do Nascimento