Monzo bans payments to Binance

Yes, 5 months after the FCA warning they bothered to show a pop-up while I was trying to make a payment. Great comms indeed, fantastic bank.

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So your issue is that Monzo didn’t alert you to the change any sooner.

Tesco would love that, please download our pay app to buy your shopping :sweat_smile:

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Can you clarify what you’re actually complaining about here please?
I’m a bit lost.
Initially it was that they had banned it, then that the documentation was/wasn’t clear, then that they should have done it five months ago in fact, or not if they were investigating.

:woman_shrugging:

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Strange the FCA has zero authority and regulation on Binance.com why are Monzo taking advice from them.

The help section in monzo links to this

BML is not Binance.com

BML has no products, they’ve stopped payments to something that is different from the FCA warning.

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That took longer than expected.

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We went through this back in June FUD where everyone freaked out until they then realised FCA put out a very ambiguous and damaging press release.

It looks like Monzo is very slow to this news and hasn’t realised that the FCA cocked up.

You might expect this mistake from a legacy bank but not Monzo. Hopefully the message gets through to whomever took this decision.

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The FCA didn’t ‘cock up’ that’s just rubbish from Binance who seem to think they are immune to FCA rules.

The FCA may not have regulatory power over Binance.com but they absolutely do have the power to warn U.K. banks not to send money to them. If Binance want U.K. customers sending money from U.K. banks then they need to abide by U.K. regulation, not just pretend the rules don’t apply to them

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I’m also surprised that they block binance , as said above it’s two different entities.

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They aren’t warning banks for customers not to send money to them. That’s my point.

They simply put out a press release saying that Binance Markets Limited, which they do have regulatory control over, is not allowed to operate in the UK.

Monzo have clearly misread this as Binance, and have themselves taken the decision to block payments to Binance.com

That’s not how the law works.

It’s not ‘misreading’. The press release clearly mentions Binance group as a whole, even in the title. Do you really think Monzo have just misread the release? They will have far more information and communication on this than us, they will just only be able to release what the FCA has released publicly.

The point is, sale of things like Crypto futures, which Binance allows, are regulated in the U.K. by the FCA and because they don’t have the proper licence they should not be selling them to U.K. customers.

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Have to say I’m glad that Monzo are acting as a responsible bank blocking payments to a company that the FCA clearly deems to think the rules don’t apply to it.

If you think that suggests the need for crypto, maybe take all your money out of Monzo and put it into crypto. But good luck buying a loaf of bread or a bus fare with it :rofl:

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Funny you mention that because I’d really love to. Can you tell me how?

Use a different platform that Monzo still support, store your crypto in a wallet and get a crypto debit card.

Coinbase can do all three. So if you’re a beginner, start there.

If you’re looking for a new bank, I’ve heard great things about Nuri, a German bank, but you can open an account in the U.K. too. They’re very crypto friendly.

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I’m not sure it’s as clear as that. Given that it took three months for Monzo to block Binance after the FCA first warned against BML, this leaves open the possibility that Monzo chose to block Binance because they saw funny things going on with transfers to/from them in the intervening period, meaning their actions were possibly taken from more evidence than we are aware of.

It mentions Binance Group in the tile because as the article says:

No other entity in the Binance Group holds any form of UK authorisation, registration or licence to conduct regulated activity in the UK.

Which is completely true!

It has no UK entity. FCA have zero authority.

So they shouldn’t then be blocking Binance.com because of the irrelevant FCA notice.

That could well be the case.

The fact they are linking to that old article as the reason has my doubts.

I think it’s a case someone high up has made a decision based on the article without taking on board Binance.com doesn’t actually operate in the UK or have any UK products. They’ve seen the word Binance and gone we gotta block that, Binance.com that must be it.

And then enjoy the rollocoaster of your goods being up to 40% cheaper or more expensive depending on the whims of the currency market. Like, if you filled up your card with Bitcoin last night everything would be over 8% more expensive than yesterday if you went shopping over lunchtime today.

I guess that’s one way to learn why unregulated currencies aren’t a very good idea 🤷

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Come on :sweat_smile:

You must have researched a bit on crypto. Bitcoin is a traded asset, it’s a store of value.

It’s like holding high risk stocks where one day you can be up and the next underwater.

Whilst it can be used for payments its likely to never be.

It’s like paying with a gold bar in Sainsbury’s.

It’s highly volatile, with slow and expensive transfers.

If you are into crypto you’ll know there are altcoins suited for specific use cases like payments. These are highly stable with low transfer costs and incredible transaction speed compared to Visa/MasterCard

And payments are just one of many many use cases of blockchain technology.

@3RqCqaaw4N wants to use it in that way, and asked how they could, hence the post you’re replying to, which isn’t wrong.

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