Bitcoin Forum

I just got a call from RBC (Royal Bank of Canada), they said that they closed my commercial bank account because my activities are related to Bitcoin.

I don't even sell or buy Bitcoins. I create physical encapsuler for physical cryptocurrencies (Not yet released).

I will close all my account at RBC and never deal with those scared crooks anymore.

I would suggest anyone having account with RBC and believing in Bitcoin to do the same.

Anyway, I needed to share that with you. :)

That sucks mate.
What's RBC btw....

Real Bastards of Canada? :D

lol ! Seems like they are, yeah !

have you tried credit unions? Around here credit unions are better than any big banks.

RBC stands for Royal Bank of Canada correct?

That's weird that Banks are handling bitcoiners like they handle drug dealers .

Canada only has a handfull of banks.

TD - Toronto Dominion (I think)
BMO - Bank of Montreal
RBC - Royal Bank of Canada
Banque National
Caisse Desjardins
Banque Laurencienne

perhaps some others, I just listed the ones that are popular in Quebec/Montreal

I personally exclussively deal with TD only and have never had an issue... granted I am one of the smallest of small fries in the bitcoin world... just direct depositing miniscule amounts of cash from cavirtex.

Yes, Royal Bank of Canada.

Haven't heard credit unions, I'll take a look !

Thanks

Credit Unions are much better than any big banks. And they're getting more and more popular since banks are all for profits.

The lady from RBC told me that they received instruction to close all Bitcoin related account and that TD received the same instruction this week.

Are you telling me that, if cavirtex sends me cash from bitcoins/litecoins mined... I can get my account closed ?

This would be total madness considering as someone who works full time, and deposits a steady income, has savings, mortgage and insurance with them...
My mining income is less than 5% of my work income...

It would be total madness.

Just wanna know what is the legal stand of Canada on Bitcoins..? because this incidents appears like RBC treats bitcoins as drugs, is it a problem with a particular bank..!

It's still quite a grey area, it's legal as far as I know but since we have an oligopoly of 6 banks here, they do whatever they want and that's a real problem.

I hate to admit I didn't put much research on the matter.

I know Vancouver has bitcoin ATM's, Tigerdirect.ca is not the size of newegg, but still very popular and accepting bitcoins.

I wouldn't think it's bad personally... All I know that has dropped to sh!t is our leadership... specially for me...
I got a retard for Quebec PM who wants to separate and offend all ethnic groups and a puppet for Canada that destroyed our reputation of piece keeping and our scientific communities in order to pollute the environment...

Sorry... I got carried away there.

Regarding the banks - I had the same issue. Cavirtex had an issue where RBC did not want to have bitcoin business and shut down CaVirtex's account (they now use DC Bank)

I mine Bitcoins and would sell them on localbitcoins for a premium via cash deposit into my bank. Bank shut me down, told me if I do this again they will close my account for good. I opened an account with every bank I could and did it till they made me stop. Now I sell on cavirtex and have to deal with the fees instead of making a premium.

Regarding Canada's stance on Bitcoins...

It is not considered legal tender [Suspicious link removed]j.com/canadarealtime/2014/01/16/canada-says-bitcoin-isnt-legal-tender/)

Currently FINTRAC has been very lenient, but I do not think it will last as do most people [Suspicious link removed]j.com/canadarealtime/2014/02/11/canada-regulators-look-at-ways-to-get-a-better-handle-on-bitcoin/)

Now it is clear that Bitcoins are taxable in Canada. However nothing specifically says if it falls under income or capital gains. I have been filing them under capital gains (thus only 50% of gains are taxable)
(http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/nwsrm/fctshts/2013/m11/fs131105-eng.html)

They do say "Digital currency can also be bought or sold like a commodity. Any resulting gains or losses could be taxable income or capital for the taxpayer. Paragraphs 9 to 32 of Interpretation Bulletin IT-479R, Transactions in Securities, provide information that can help in determining whether transactions are income or capital in nature." but to be honest even after reading it I do not see any clear-cut regulation of it having to be one or the other.

I'm a separatist but not the way the PQ want to do. I simply wanna have the control of our destiny and do that project with ALL of the peoples living in Quebec. I want us to be able to decide by ourself of our Laws, Treaties and collecting tax for ourself and using it on things that really matters. We'll still be friend with Canada and have a nice relation, but we'll be able to act in our own interest.  ;D

More reason to put the banks out of business. They are a bunch of greedy fucks who are afraid of bitcoin. And they run the fucking World.

Burn em' all to the ground I say.

Just need more infrastructure so that it will be easier to live solely off bitcoins.

The bankers are starting to see the writing on the wall. I can't wait till they all implode!!

Out of curiosity - were you making excessive deposits by any chance? Or was the bank just account pretty much inactive, and the description was just related to being a Bitcoin business? 

The name of the company is Cryptolator Cryptomonnaies Physique (in english it would be: Cryptolator Physical Cryptocurrencies) so that is probably the problem and why it has been flagged.

Anyway when I registered the account they asked a lot of question on what would be the purpose of the company and what I'll be selling, I didn't want to lie and have problem later.

The account was inactive for the moment..

well now you have the opportunity to test the limits of bitcoin to the fullest

instead of looking for another bank, look for ways to work around the banks only using btc,  call it forced progress

or

you can spearhead a bitcoin foundation of canada and start talking to the banks, central banks, and any other national financial regulators to have btc respected if not codified


I hate the very notion of a bank looking analyzing my account outside of the numbers.  

Now matter weather its Canada or India all those politicians/corporates will keep it in  that grey area for as long as possible, so that they can scam innocent people . we need some kinda change and one day i hope it will change. have faith in BTC

Appears this started happening with RBC in Ottawa about a year ago (http://www.businessinsider.com/canadian-banks-closing-bitcoin-businesses-2013-4; http://www.obj.ca/Local/2013-04-29/article-3229285/RBC-shuts-down-Ottawa-Bitcoin-account/1). Apparently the "Big 6" banks ( RBC, TD, BMO, CIBC, Scotiabank and National Bank) have all colluded to shutdown Bitcoin (http://globalnews.ca/news/996853/as-bitcoin-surges-canadian-banks-make-converting-to-cash-difficult/). They must feel pretty threatened.

This article by Stuart Hoegner on the state of Bitcoin in Canada lists a lot of good things happening there, other than the banks (http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/michaelcayley/bitcoin-not-legal-tender-canada_b_4673661.html) Good luck!

New update from Cavirtex
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qETYr2EsiI#t=5

Simply by the name of my company, I suppose...

Wow so they are actively seeking out Bitcoin companies and preventing them from operating...crazy. Not surprising but still disappointing.

Not sure if you have any DC Banks there but look into them. Cavirtex uses them so they are likely bitcoin friendly.

RBC is known to hate Bitcoin - the way they just shut down Cavirtex and refused to let the company hold a bank account with them was crazy. TD as well - you can tell by the fact that they removed VOGOGO as a bill payment option (it is used to import CAD into Cavirtex)

It is sad but this is the world we live in

It's funny how big institutions can act like scared idiots.

We should open the Bitcoin Bank?

I'm in ! :P

there are two in the world that I know of.

This is another example of anti-fragility at work.  Resistance from banks pushes innovators to prefer transacting on the blockchain, further severing the link to fiat and expanding the bitcoin-to-bitcoin economy.  

Provide links.
Where?

I will keep saying this until I am blue in the face. Fiat and Bitcoin will not mix, the banks will never allow it because it will make them obsolete. What part of that do people not understand? Bitcoin was designed to replace the fiat system and here we have people trying to integrate the two, LOL. It will not happen!!!! Make no mistake, this will be an all out war between the banking system and Bitcoin.

do a search for 1st bitcoin bank in the world, you will see a listing then in the listing it will refer to an earlier bitcoin bank with a name like 'bitcom bank of islam' they do interest

I'll try to find them again



here is one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=21732.0

I do understand, but what I'll be selling is to facilitate having secure storage for Bitcoin. I'm not selling or buying Bitcoin. I think that being able to buy it with fiat make it simpler for a lot of peoples.

We need one somewhere like in the US, Canada, UK.

THis makes me want to close my RBC accounts.... :S.. Seems like they might just do it to me.  This would be the third time RBC has screwed me.

Are you selling bitcoins? If you are guaranteed they will eventually. Happened to me - and only a matter of time until localbitcoin vendors can only accept cash in person.

Without banks , bitcoin wouldn't have reached 1000$.
90% of the trading is done with money sent via banking systems.

And don't fool yourself , even with fiat money gone , banks will still be there.

Then close it, better safe than sorry.

well that was dumb of them ..

they shoulda kept u for their bail-ins they gonna do soon ..

As much as people say it, banks will never become obsolete. As much as I love Bitcoin I think the belief that crypto can replace all fiat is far fetched. They are a necessary evil. As to there motivations behind closing bitcoin related accounts? Possible that they do not understand it, or feel that Bitcoin can reduce their profits.

Either way, it is pretty disappointing. I myself have been trying to set up a Bitcoin related business and have been looking to which bank to use.

If this what banks want, we can start forming our credit unions: http://www.ask.com/question/how-do-i-start-a-credit-union

Look up on laws and regulation and seek for bitcoiners investment.

You can add Scotia Bank and CIBC to that list.

I don't want to get into this too much but you do realize what would happen if Pauline got her way, had a referendum and Quebec split from Canada.

Quebec would fall apart, all the people with money, French or otherwise would leave Quebec and take their money and Quebec would be left with a bunch of broke French people who no future to be had.

separatism is not the stance I`m taking and neither should you take that stance but it`s a free world so vote as you wish.

I was thinking it - but I am not from Quebec so I dont have the right to say it...but totally agree with you there

Is there a way that people could talk back against this?

I was thinking: What about 100-200 people get together, all people get t-shirts saying something like:

"Bitcoin is neutral, just like cash" on the front. And on the back it says:

"RBC is acting unethically
denying legit businesses"

Then once a week make a peaceful appearance at the bank. Walk into the bank, fist a few of you, then some more, and eventually the entire bank is filled with people with yellow t-shirts with your message. Have some good spoke person that handle the media, and make the case known. Also, if you can find the private addresses of some of the banksters of RBC, make sure to gather a lot of people outside their house on the street, do some barbecue or otherwise make your presence clear.

Also contact consumer organizations and politicians and make your stance clear. That would in fact be really cool if you bothered to do this.

If people just become mad and close their accounts, that will not really make any impact.

To protect yourself you need to separate your bitcoin activities from everything else. Preferably use a completely unrelated bank. I've heard of people who had to move everything from their bank (imagine all that hassle), just because they did some bitcoin dealings.

LMAO.. If you get 100 people to do this I'll donate the 100 t-shirts!

I'm just thinking out loud.

IF the bitcoin community got together and started a bitcoin friendly bank or credit union, could other banks then refuse to make transfers to this bank - or would that be illegal? If it was illegal, could this then be a smart way to avoid the banking troubles for the bitcoin community?

Of course you have a right to mention this, you live in Canada and Quebec is a part of Canada. Feel free to speak your mind, don't imprison your thoughts.

Total madness is spreading these days, let's hope for better times soon.

I don't live in Canada, so I have no way of doing this, but I think the idea is great. I think making noise without being violent is the way to make your voice be heard.

No you wouldn't - receiving those payments from CaVirtex is fine. To be clear the OP had a BUSINESS account that was related to Bitcoins. In other words banks are denying Bitcoin-related companies an account at the bank.

I used to have people do cash deposits from localbitcoins - I was told I cannot do this but the direct deposits from cavirtex are fine.

I think the bank is just being risk-adverse. After all bitcoin associated businesses are a small amount of their total customer base, so they really don't care.

There really should be some kind of law against this. As long as an account holder is not under investigation by law enforcement where freezing of funds is considered necessary, or there has been a conclusion in a court of law that the account holder is engaged in criminal acts, then the bank should be obliged to provide banking services.

The banks have a monopoly on banking (duh), so basically shutting out people like this can ruin their entire business.

But I guess there's no countries where you can actually sue a bank to make them give you access to banking facilities?

Stop living in a lalaland and move out of your parents basement ....

Banks are private entities, they're not obligated under any law to provide you a service.

Banks shutting down acct isnt the same as freezing fund. They basically tell you to move your fund elsewhere and end relationship with you.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make -- are you saying that Bitcoin is some kind of play money that has no value when exchanged with fiat currency?  Both have perceived value and as long as they do, there will always be exchange between the two.   The world is not going to wake up to some libertarian-anarchist utopia and stop using government-issued fiat currency overnight.

Banks are hostile towards bitcoin, it's obvious, because it challenges their profits.  They are providing resistance, which just causes people wanting to exchange between fiat and currency to find alternate methods that are more expensive, down to trading with moneypak joe.   The free market predicts that there will be entrepreneurs that will build systems that are safer, cheaper and more more efficient than what currently exists for trading between the two.  When banks see their profits from payment systems and wire transfers going down, they or their successors will start dealing in bitcoin.

I thought Canada was very bitcoin friendly, I am surprised to hear they would simply shut you down without any reason.

Did an account manager speak to you first?

I respect your opinion, I must admit that I really don't know what would happen if we separate. The only thing I know is that there is not a single countries that regret the separation from their old countries, not a single one feel like they made a mistake and want to go back, and we're talking about 34 new countries in the last 24 years.
But that's my opinion and I don't wanna start a war about it. Like I said, I am not ok with the way Pauline want to make her new countrie (By dividing and create tension). So our opinions are not so far I guess :P

They did give him a reason. Which part of the OP you dont understand?

Forget about bitcoin, there are many cases that banks refuse to provide service base on "high-risk" and they're not obligated to tell you about their investigation.

The banks have a shared database. It's used to identify high risk individuals; I've been refused a bank account before due to a $200 balance owed at a separate bank institution...

Just wait until banks refuse to open new accounts for anybody who's been flagged as a Bitcoin user.

We need to start getting more decentralized and stop relying on the banks... They hold way too much power over people.

The problem with this is that companies with products cannot accept bitcoin without a way for them to pay for the products they sell.  There HAS to be a gateway for users of crypto-currencies to facilitate their real-world dollar values into existence.  If you close off FIAT <--> CRYPTO then how do the supporters of the crypto and those who accept crypto in lieu of 'fiat based payments' for their products or services, then how do you expect those people to deliver their services or products?  The ultimate solution would be for their suppliers to accept crypto as well (but then again, you have just moved the necessity of conversion from the 'middle man' to the supply point.  Electricity costs fiat - you cannot pay to operate a factory in crypto without there being a method for the crypto to have fiat leverage.

While your concept is everything that cryprocurrency stands for, you have to consider that until the MAJORITY of suppliers, vendors, and the likes move away from FIAT and over to crypto, there is NO conceivable way that crypto will ever have value other than the data space it consumes for the ledger. 

I run several FIAT based businesses - I lease managed/unmanaged dedicated servers (no VPS), I do web design and site building, among many other things IT related.  I would love to accept crypto - but I cannot without a method to convert into fiat so I can pay my vendors and suppliers.  If they accepted it, then they have to have a method.  You can't pay for your basic necessities of a business without fiat of some form.  Eventually, the money runs out. 

Sorry that happened to you, some banks like US Bank here in Colorado suck to work with.

My current bank Wells Fargo has been pretty good. I went and opened a new checking account to add to the one's I had so I could have a single account to move USD in and out of the exchanges with out touching my main established accounts.

When my banker asked me what it was for I told him about Bitcoin and crypto exchanges. His supervisor came over and got into the conversation, I was pretty amazed to be talking to 2 bankers, that had not even heard of the Bitcoin market much less what it was. When I told them there could be a day when these digital currency's could challenge there authority, they seemed to start talking notes. Kind of funny.

The meeting ended with, "thank you sir for your continued business. Oh and by the way did you want to open up another line of credit? Looks like our computer already approved you for another 10k"

Oh, sure. LOL

Rob :o

Wow, thats brutal.  I hate the banks here in Canada. In fact, I hate banks all together.  I find credit unions to be far better to deal with.  I was surprised how easy it was to send money to Virtex through my credit union.  I didn't think they would have Vogogo as a payee, but they did.  I haven't tried to pull my money out of virtex back into my credit union, so we shall see how easy that will be.

Credit Unions are definitely the way to go.

We should create a bitcoin credit union.

So a quick question. Sorry not up on my own countries laws for this let alone other countries but its it not illegal to do something like this ?

If not then its a great way of attacking bitcoin.

Sure wont kill it but could be a major pain in the ass.

indeed, and that is far easier to start, maintain, and community control.  Govt regs are not as onerous.

if you can do the web development I could organize the mgmt, marketing, and compliance.

 

I lease and manage servers in 3 US datacenters on Peer1's backbone - and can get more at a rate for the platform -- Also develop in ASP/ASP.NET if that helps - willing to contribute where I can...

great, I'll send a message to gog1 to get an idea of his actual interest, then we could send up a post seeking working partners and ideas for the credit union. 

while a bitcoin credit union is an idea, we've to gather support, a couple of guys cannot form the deposit base.  We have to think of the scope of our services and target.

some of them include: serving bitcoin related business, esp exchanges - we hear how many got their account closed

we have to brainstorm and come up to further expand on the idea.

A Bitcoin Credit Union would basically be a revision of a Bitcoin Exchange... Sort of like a local CoinBase office where you could deposit conventional currency or Bitcoin and merchants can choose what portions of sales are converted to fiat or maintained as BTC, etc...

Local businesses could choose to accept Bitcoin and deal directly with a local Credit Union who can work with Bitcoin or Government issued currency.

I think it would be easier to convince existing local Credit Unions to implement Bitcoin services.

CoinBase could also make for a nice Credit Union if they aspired to it.

I would love to be a part of something like this but I'm not in a financial position to bring any assets to the table.

Thats so wrong i just stop reading there .

Also i never propose "bitcoin" credit union or bank. I propose a community based credit union just like every other credit unions. Its only for fiat currency thats managed by financial professionals not some bitcoiners nerd,.

So you just want a regular Credit Union who is friendly with Bitcoin...

I want more like Neo & Bee.

yes.... bitcoin is not regulated and bitcoin bank is useless.

wew i hope my bankofamerica dont do this to me. too much hassle  :(

I don't think a Bitcoin bank is useless...

I think at this stage in Bitcoins development it may be premature but I hope to one day see Bitcoin backed loans, mortgages, insurance, etc...

I guess I'm looking too far forward.

Its useless because you dont need traditional banking with for loans etc in bitcoin.

Its built in escrow can handle that.

Any business that ask ppl to send their bitcoins in and "store" them is a failed business.

While I hate traditional banking; traditional banking will never fail.

They can work with Bitcoin, Dollars, Euro, Eagles, Ruples, Yen... There needs to be a go-to place for basic financial needs as a matter of convenience.

A Bitcoin Credit Union would differ from a Bitcoin bank in that depositors profit on those deposits and have voting rights within the Union...

Thats because they think that is what we are. Doing illegal activities.

great input 

every credit union is essentially community based, no one needs to be rich to get in or help out

 

he's right, and by the way gog1 made the credit union suggestion that we are considering

The banks aren't usually smart. Due to this you should avoid the ones like RBC.

Curious on how old the account was with the Royal ?

Hi,

I am just going through the same issue, my accounts are 2 years old. My cross border account was shut down last week by RBC and now my accounts at RBC in Canada have been flagged and I was asked to stop bitcoin transactions or my banking relationship will be terminated. The branch manager informed me that they received instructions to close all RBC accounts (business or personal) that have any bitcoin or suspected bitcoin transactions. Very disappointed in the Canadian banks.

So what ? Last i heard bitcoin is legal and its none of their business.

Do they close accounts of shops selling dildos and stuff.