Thus, de facto, the cards of Sberbank and Tinkoff Bank were removed from the list of payment systems on the exchange. Both banks are on the US sanctions list.
Earlier in the week, the US newspaper The Wall Street Journal, citing sources, reported that the US Department of Justice was investigating Binance in connection with a possible violation of US sanctions against Russia. Among other things, the exchange was accused of continuing to process “significant” volumes of ruble transactions. Therefore, theoretically, Binance’s current decision to “hide” the names of Russian banks may be related precisely to allegations of violation of the sanctions regime. Formally, according to the logic of the stock exchange, if Russian banks are not mentioned, but replaced by names of neutral colors, then the regulators have nothing to complain about.
Previously, Binance also supported the upcoming EU anti-Russian sanctions package, limiting transactions for Russian users to a limit of €10,000. At the same time, the crypto exchange did not completely shut down customer service from Russia.
