- Mastercard and Binance part ways from each other, bringing an end to its crypto card program
- This move has affected the card payment services in four regions
Binance – the largest crypto exchange by trade volume – seems to be losing out with the mounting regulatory scrutiny from Western regulators. In the latest development, Mastercard – one of the leading payment service providers – announced that it would be parting ways from the exchange.
Specifically, the company will stop extending support for four crypto card programs.
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Only Binance’s card service impacted
As reported earlier by AMBCrypto, with this, users in Argentina, Brazil, Bahrain, and Columbia would not be able to use their cards to make payments. The crypto exchange already suspended and restricted its card services in these regions.
Furthermore, as per one of Binance’s X accounts, the card program is set to be terminated by the end of 21 September 2023. Moreover, the crypto exchange stated that any refunds and disputes with regard to the cards program will be dealt with in December 2023.
Notably, the payments processing giant didn’t explain the motivation behind the action. In a statement to Reuters, Mastercard, however, assured that this decision would not affect its other crypto card program partners.
This includes Gemini – a leading American crypto exchange. Meanwhile, Binance customer support has been notifying users on X, formerly Twitter, that the payment services will no longer be available. A Tweet read,
“The Binance card will no longer be available for users in Latin America and the Middle East. The product, like most debit cards, has been utilized by Binance’s users to pay for basic daily expenses but in this case, the cards are funded with crypto assets. Only a tiny portion of our users (less than 1% users in the markets mentioned) are impacted by this.”
Impact on BNB?
The latest development didn’t exactly seem to have dealt a huge blow to Binance Coin [BNB]. According to CoinMarketCap, the crypto was still strongly holding its fourth position in the market with a market cap of over $33 billion.
At press time, BNB was trading at $216 and had not registered a significant upward or downward trend in the past 24 hours. In the seven-day chart, however, the coin had registered a 3.99% downfall, alongside the wider crypto market.
Meanwhile, the short-term price analysis showed that there was bearish sentiment surrounding the coin. According to TradingView, BNB’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) took a dip below the neutral 50 mark on the one-hour chart.
This indicated that the coin was moving toward the oversold region. However, the indicator did hint at a reverse trend. A similar pattern was seen with Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD). Although above the zero line, the MACD showed a bearish crossover. This was an indication that BNB was trying to stay afloat.
