Binance Restricts Trading Accounts in Nigeria Over Security Concerns
In a letter titled ‘A letter from our CEO to Nigerians: Our commitment to user protection’ dated January 29, CEO Changpeng Zhao apologized for the inconvenience caused by delays in resolving customer support requests.
Noting that 'User security' remains his exchange’s top priority, he assured that protection mechanisms such as KYC, anti-money laundering measures, collaboration with law enforcement, and account restrictions are in place to ensure the community remains protected and that fraudulent activity is prevented.
“Some 281 Nigerian accounts have been affected by these personal account restrictions, with approximately 38% of these cases restricted at the request of international law enforcement,” he added.
Regarding the restricted accounts, he said that the platform is working on speedy resolutions of ongoing user cases tied to account restrictions and plans to deploy more customer service personnel and risk agents to quicken the resolution process.
"Currently, we have resolved 79 cases and continue to work through others. All non-law enforcement-related cases will be resolved within two weeks," Zhao said.
Binance Tightens Money-Laundering Checks
Recently, users of Nigeria launched a campaign to boycott Binance for freezing their accounts amid their inability to initiate or complete transactions. Regarding this, the trading platform said last week:
“At times, we proactively restrict accounts to protect users’ funds. Other times, we have to restrict accounts at the request of law enforcement. But never will we restrict accounts without good reason.”
Binance has been facing scrutiny in a number of jurisdictions worldwide, including Pakistan, Canada, the U.S., U.K., South Africa, Australia, Norway, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Germany, Italy, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey, and Lithuania. In August, the platform said it is making regulatory compliance a top priority as it forays into moving from a decentralized business model to a centralized one.