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Visa credit card company has confirmed to Gambling 911 exclusively that it has banned U.S. citizens from using Visa credit cards to fund binary option trading in foreign lands.
The ban was first reported earlier this week by the financial news website FinanceMagnates.com, though Visa made no public announcement of the ban.
Gambling 911 on Thursday contacted the Visa press office to confirm the ban and late Friday afternoon, Visa vice-president for corporate media relations Connie Lee Kim gave Gambling 911 an exclusive statement about the matter.
The statement from Kim reads:
"Visa recently issued a note to our acquirers and issuers to make them aware of the rise in consumer complaints and regulatory scrutiny related to merchants selling binary options.
"Regulators have warned that much of the binary options market operates through Internet-based trading platforms that are not necessarily complying with applicable U.S. regulatory requirements.
"This has been reflected in recent complaints from cardholders, and therefore Visa urged acquirers to exercise caution when underwriting and monitoring merchants that solicit and sell binary options.
"Visa’s rules mandate that a transaction must be legal in both the buyer’s and seller’s jurisdiction and acquirers must ensure no transactions are submitted on behalf of merchants engaged in illegal, fraudulent or deceptive business practices."
FinanceMagnates.com, in a story posted earlier this week, reported that Visa has banned residents of the U.S. and Canada from using Visa credit cards to fund binary options trading with firms outside the U.S.
Visa sent notices of the ban to payment processors and others who serve as middlemen who permit traders to get their monies to binary options trading operations, the website reported.
A copy of the notice was obtained by the website, which said Visa instituted the ban because a number of binary options trading operations that are based outside the U.S. are involved in fraud and not regulated.
The Visa ban comes on the heels of media reports last week that detailed fraud in the worldwide binary options trading industry.
The media reports were fueled by a leaker who worked for a binary options trading operation, grew disenchanted with the fraud and provided stolen confidential customer information from the operation that exposed how traders were ripped off.
The leaker has received death threats and is now in hiding.
By Tom Somach
Gambling 911 Staff Writer
