During the Blockchain Africa Conference being held in Johannesburg, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, announced that the firm will offer a fiat gateway for South African digital asset traders that will allow them to make deposits in South African Rand (ZAR).
According to the CEO, South African crypto traders will be able to make ZAR deposits on the platform via Binance’s official website soon.
Zhao tied the move into Binance’s global expansion plans:
“Africa illustrates one of the largest demands and instrumental use cases for cryptocurrency, notably for financial access. According to the World Bank, approximately 66 percent of sub-Saharan Africans are listed as unbanked. So instead of trying to bank the unbanked, let’s try and Bitcoin the un-Bitcoined.”
Binance is Looking for African Expansion
At the moment, Binance is offering trading and other crypto services to 35 African nations. South Africa is one of the larger nations in Africa, and Binance wants to reach it directly.
Zhao pointed out:
“Looking at South African specifically, crypto adoption continues to rise with SA being one of the top five countries in terms of cryptocurrency ownership. Today I’m excited to announce that Binance is launching a South African fiat-to-crypto gateway soon. This will enable South Africans to buy cryptocurrencies with their local bank accounts.”
Tanya Knowles, the South Africa country manager of Binance, noted that many South African residents are taking advantage of the freedom of information and movement, but freedom of money.
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, currently has a presence in 180 countries and processes millions of transactions.
A Big Turnover
The data from Coin360 showed that the value of Binance’s global digital currency transactions is estimated to be about $4 billion per day.
Despite being a large economy on the African continent, South Africa remains a nation of economic extremes. Most of the population is poor, and may not be able to access banking services due to high costs, and compliance issues.
Cryptos are a perfect solution for unbanked populations, and the new initiative by Binance could help millions of disadvantaged people access low to no-cost financial services.
Read more:Binance Launches Fiat Gateways for South Africa | BitBoy Crypto
