Contrary to its claims of having no ties to any bank, Binance's peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency exchange in Russia is reportedly still facilitating transactions involving sanctioned banks, including the Bank of Russia.
Local news sources reported on August 23 that Binance P2P had altered the names of some questionable withdrawal and deposit payment options, specifically sanctioned Russian banks such as Tinkoff and Rosbank.
The P2P exchange had substituted the bank names "Tinkoff" and "Rosbank" with terms like "yellow card" and "green card."
Presently, Binance P2P enables customers to sell cryptocurrencies like Tether using a "local card." This renaming apparently followed a report from The Wall Street Journal on August 22, which revealed that Binance had listed several sanctioned Russian banks, including Rosbank and Tinkoff, as payment options for Russian customers.
In response to the WSJ report, Binance executives refused any connection to banks on its P2P platform, asserting that the company follows global sanctions rules and denies access to individuals, organizations, and entities blacklisted by the international community.
This development emerged shortly after prominent Russian YouTuber Yuri Dud promoted Binance's services in Russia on his YouTube channel. In a recent video, Dud advertised Binance services, offering 5 USDT in exchange for registering on the platform. Additionally, he endorsed Binance Earn, a product enabling users to earn passive cryptocurrency income through various avenues like flexible savings, staking, and liquidity mining.
It remains uncertain how this news ties into Western sanctions against Russia. In February, the European Council imposed sanctions on Russian banks, including Tinkoff and Rosbank, as part of a response to Russia's actions in Ukraine. The US also sanctioned Tinkov in May.
Notably, the US Department of Justice security division initiated an investigation into Binance a few months ago for potentially enabling Russians to use the exchange in violation of US sanctions.
However, Binance isn't the sole cryptocurrency exchange facilitating such transactions in Russia. Other major P2P cryptocurrency exchanges like Huobi and OKX also allow transfers involving Tinkoff, Rosbank, and Sberbank.
