Binance Now Supports Deposits and Withdrawals in Hong-Kong Dollars

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has opened a fiat gateway for Hong Kong dollars.

Launched thanks to its partnership with Epay, Binance said on Monday users can deposit and withdraw Hong Kong dollars from today for trading against supported cryptocurrencies.

Binance already supports euros and pounds sterling through Epay, a payments provider founded in Hong Kong in 2014.

The latest addition is something of a coup for the exchange because banks in the jurisdiction are notoriously averse to offering accounts to cryptocurrency companies.

The local Gatecoin exchange closed last spring blaming a funds freeze by a payments processor after having difficulties finding banking for some time. While the firm attempted to survive using other payments services from outside of Hong Kong, it put down its eventual closing to not having ever got the frozen funds back.

Binance has been rapidly rolling out new fiat gateways in a push to serve local markets globally, having been a purely crypto-to-crypto trading platform until last autumn.

It most recently added 15 fiat currencies through a partnership with Israeli payments provider Simplex, and has previously added the national currencies of nations such as Russia, Ukraine, Nigeria and India.