Wire Transfer Problems Worsen for Digital Currency Exchange Bitfinex

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20 April 2017

Digital currency exchange Bitfinex can’t send wire transfers abroad due to its ongoing banking issues, representatives said today.

Responding to users on Reddit, a rep for the firm said that despite initial signs to the contrary, outbound wire transfers are unavailable in Swiss francs and Hong Kong dollars. Bitfinex later released a formal statement on the matter.

Initially, the rep said, wire transfers denominated in CHF and HKD were going out – but then “the vast majority of these wires were rejected over the course of the last week”.

Bitfinex went on to say:

“We were advised by our banks that we would be able to process outbound wires in HKD and CHF, and while we were able to successfully process several such transactions, we are now being told that the moratorium is being extended to these currencies, as well. Domestic transfers in all currencies within Taiwan, however, are working with no problems or delays.”

The exchange said that in spite of the wire outage, withdrawals and deposits denominated in digital currencies are still working, as well as domestic transfers.

The disclosure marks the latest wrinkle in Bitfinex’s ongoing banking dispute, which surfaced earlier this month. During the first week of April, the exchange said it was unable to process outbound wire transfers in US dollars due to issues with Wells Fargo, which previously acted as a correspondent bank for the financial institutions Bitfinex works with in Taiwan.

Earlier this week, Bitfinex announced that it would not longer be able to accept inbound wire transfers due to the banking dispute.

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