Binance Adds Merchant Features to Early Version of Payments Platform
Binance Pay now includes merchant functions, allowing businesses to process payments in crypto, online or in-person.
Updated Sep 14, 2021 at 12:25 p.m. UTC
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The Binance exchange is adding new features for merchants to its cryptocurrency payments platform following a beta release in February.
- Binance Pay now allows businesses to process payments in crypto, online or in-person, via QR codes and a dedicated API, the company said in a blog post Friday.
- The beta version, which was for peer-to-peer payments only, drew a claimed 250,000 users.
- Founder and CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao previously described payments as the "most obvious use case for crypto."
- With Binance Pay charging no fees, CZ said Friday, “Traditional payment infrastructure services are riddled with high transaction fees; we see this Pay product as a way to solve one of the many issues and limitations of traditional finance."
- Binance's first merchant client on the platform is Travala, a travel-booking platform that already uses its own cryptocurrency.
- Merchant payments services like this generally allow businesses to automatically convert their crypto to fiat at the time of a transaction to counter price volatility.
- However, a Binance spokesperson told CoinDesk that with Pay, "Merchants can manage the payouts by moving their balances to the Binance spot wallet and cashing out using their preferred banking channel."
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