Bitcoin Forum

Just tried Barclays and RBS and none of them allow setting up a business account for trading Bitcoin.
I thought Virgin would be something but they don't actually do business accounts.

If no one knows I'll try calling more tomorrow and report back here in case anyone is interested.

You can always avoid the banks and trade on exchanges that only allow cryptos, just but the Bitcoins in Localbitcoin. Banks are a fucking pain in the ass.

Yeah.

This was more for someone who may wish to buy on an exchange and sell on LocalBitcoin though.

Well Coinbase recently set up the UK's first legit exchange so I'm assuming they have bank accounts. Maybe try find out which ones they use?

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/29/bitcoin-coinbase-launches-in-uk

Their bank's in Estonia.

As far as I know not one UK bank has permitted a crypto related account to survive.

At least the OP is saving time by not getting retrospectively shut down.

Most localbitcoin traders don't seem to tell their banks what they're up to. There are lots of messages pleading with their buyers not to put 'bitcoin' in the transfer info field.

Fidor are setting up a UK branch. It seems to be personal banking only here. They're fully crypto friendly in the EU. I imagine they'll be a lot less so in the UK as none of the other banks will want to play with them. It's a pathetic situation.

No one can break away from the herd because there's too much of a stranglehold by the big players.

It is quite a pain trying to use banks with Bitcoin, when buying bitcoin from Bitylicious it is requested not to put anything about BTC in any reference field to avoid any issues.  There is this company Lazycoins which recently setup a UK office and look like they are working towards gaining a license with HMRC , although I thought a while ago they were already accepting faster payment transfers, maybe I am wrong in this and it was another company but I am pretty sure they were doing this a short while ago.

https://lazycoins.com/fiat

Quite a few Bitcoin places started off with faster payments. After a few weeks or months they lost it again, often the entire account too.

Even if you route through an obscure bank, that obscure bank is still at the mercy of the major UK banks as to whether it can access their markets and facilities. There was an Isle of Man bank that had the same thing happen to it when they offered an account to a Bitcoin business.

I hope Lazycoins does manage to break the trend but I'm not hopeful.

It will be an interesting time for sure when the first company does manage to get both feet firmly planted in the UK, especially the user uptake as I would imagine it would take a significant amount of time before trust can be built.

I've actually been speaking with people/investors about potentially trying to open a UK Bitcoin bank. I think I would have some trust just from the past 2 years of running PRC but it is looking to be quite difficult with the banks right now.

I'll still call all the other banks tomorrow just so we can get a final list of all banks saying no or not. Which as gentlemand says, it's looking like none of them will have anything to do with Bitcoin.

Just called TSB and HSBC and they also won't allow it.

I wonder if it's worth trying the retail banks?
Co-Op
Harrods
Sainsbury's
Tesco

Or foreign owned brands like:
Citibank
Cldesdale
Santander
Yorkshire Bank

I don't think you're going to find any UK bank that'll provide a business account for btc trading, I haven't heard of anybody who has successfully managed to do that. One option might be to set up your own credit union (or maybe join one) though I've heard it can be costly and very time consuming.



http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cardsloans/article-1585125/Credit-unions.html

Yeah it looks like that. Thanks for the link.

I know there are Bitcoin companies based in UK, I wonder what banks they use? Maybe still using a foreign bank?

Livecoin (https://www.livecoin.net/contacts) is a uk exchange they should know which uk bank is ok

What quantities are you trading in?
I've been buying bitcoin via UK bank to bank transfer for a long time.
I only buy & HODL though so it could be different to selling with lots of incoming transactions.
Unless you're a serious miner & selling lots & lots of coin I'd just say nothing & it's very unlikely they'll flag you up as dodgy.
The finance minister in the UK has been saying semi positive things regarding bitcoin any way so hopefully in the near future all banks in the UK will comply.

Here you go have a read - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/11014508/George-Osborne-embraces-Bitcoin-as-London-aims-to-be-centre-of-global-financial-technology-revolution.html

Fidor Bank's UK launch has been delayed by the big four banks (Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and RBS). They refused to be a sponsor bank for Fidor to give it direct access to payments systems. They haven't said why they refused, although it could be because Fidor intends to be crypto friendly.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/11513405/UK-launch-of-digital-bank-Fidor-hamstrung-by-payments-providers.html

The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has started a review of the limited access available to the UK’s infrastructure, but it only expects to deliver its finding in 12 months.

IMO, banks are having a hard time dealing with AML regulations and fines recently, and bitcoin account will attract illegal transactions like a honey pot. They don't want to constantly be contacted by the police and regulators and even receive a fine for it, so they deny all the bitcoin related business accounts(classified as high risk business)

You can have a look at China, where banks and payment processors are banned from doing bitcoin business. Their exchanges are using employee's personal account to do bitcoin funding. Suppose that one employee can have 10 different personal account in 10 different banks, 10 such employee will get 100 such accounts, that will be enough for a while

Over time, some of them will be shutdown due to some illegal transactions (99% of the transactions are legal thus will not trigger bank's warning mechanism). Banks do not trace each account daily, accounts could be never checked for years if there is no police report of illegal transactions. But sooner or later, some money laudering/man in the middle attack/id theft will trigger such an event and resulting in the closure of one account

This means that the fiat banking practice can also be decentralized. If bitcoin is legal but banks refuse to open business account, then that will create a market demand for bank accounts. There will be people selling their personal accounts to bitcoiners for bitcoin trading, just like what happens in China right now

All them Banks is a big fat NO NO NO been there done it and seen it

I read somewhere that Nationwide are maybe the least unfriendly. You'd need a current account though rather than a saver.

If you're not actually trading but just want to convert your BTC back into £, then it might be worth trying https://www.tenx.tech/ . Their prepaid Visa card will convert from BTC (and ETH too very soon) at point of purchase. I've been using one for about a month. See also https://www.reddit.com/r/TenX/

Being honest buying and selling here and there is fine but if you have 100's of transactions on a weekly or daily basis that's where the problem comes.

As of yet I have not seen any UK Bank's that supports Crypto.

Actually was buying a small amount from Coinbase tonight via my MBNA Credit Card which I have used on Coinbase 4-5 months ago and today MBNA Declined called them up and said we no longer are allowed to make payments to Coinbase or Bitcoin Related Activity.  Reason given due to customers safety we can't allow this

United kingdom Bitcoin and crypto are cold against the money, the best example of which we have experienced last week. It is also the first country to bring taxes to the netherlands and United kingdom Bitcoin. I'm afraid you will not get what you want from the banks.

Well Bank Of England about to launch there own Crypto Currency now.  I think in 2018 will be different and they may take it more serious as they will loose out.

Anyone has dealings with Monzo Bank?

I would suggest you to trade in the bitcoin exchanges not in the banks because they would not accept this. Try trading in the ideal trading exchanges like etherdelta and others.

Trading in exchange is good but still need the FIAT currency as well