Coinbase was not banned. The issue is that ALL the exchangers including Coinbase MUST have a financial license in EU. Coinbase has licenses only in USA. Germany is not joking when it's about finances and that's why Coinbase removed this country from their list.
There is actually not an European Rule that you must have an license.
The European Commission plans this rules which must be setup in national laws till 2017
Tackling terrorist financing risks linked to virtual currencies: to prevent misuse of virtual currencies for money laundering and terrorist financing purposes, the Commission proposes to bring virtual currency exchange platforms and custodian wallet providers under the scope of the Anti-Money Laundering Directive. These entities will have to apply customer due diligence controls when exchanging virtual for real currencies, ending the anonymity associated with such exchanges;
The question is "Why does only Germany banns Coinbase and localbitcoins?"
What is with the other european countries?
The second question what will happened with the other bitcoin exchanges like Kraken, Circle and so on? Will they banned also in the next days?
This is a completion for an existing law.Even now, you must have a financial license if you operate as e-currency exchanger. You are transmitting money(you work with fiat; receive and send money) and this thing follows under an existing EU law. You need to be PI(payment institution) or E-money institution(EMI).
Coinbase does not have a such license in EU( indeed they are licensed in almost all the USA but these licenses are not passporting to EU) and that's why they preferred to remove Germany from their list. Why Germany? Because this country specified that all the BTC trades require a license.
According to BaFin ( German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority), as a rule, commercial trading of Bitcoins is regulated and more than that, anyone who purchases and sells Bitcoins commercially in his own name for the account of others conducts principal broking services and has to obtain a licence by BaFin
So, the EU financial law regarding to the companies who run an exchanger already exists. They must be licensed now too. That's why Bitstamp and Circle already took these licenses. Do you think that they wanted to spare a lot of money for an useless thing?
No! It is mandatory if you want to operate legally and with the peace of the mind in EU.
So, Circle has a financial license in EU and Kraken is illegal(both in USA and EU).
Kraken is operating without being MSB in any state from US and they have no license in EU too...What does mean? It's an illegal company.
Yes, they are very vocal in media but they are...out of law.
The new article that you quote will make the existing law more clearly AND more, all the "wallets" will have to get a such license if they want to have clients from EU.
