US Banks restricting international wires: how does it affect BTC?

[rampantparanoia]

Discuss. http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/10/shock-hsbc-usa-joins-chase-in-limiting.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

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[joesmoe2012]

Makes it more difficult to send international wires, but not impossible by any means. Neither bank is prohibiting all of their busienss customers from sending wires, rather only the basic, entry level business checking accounts are no longer permitted. All that is necessary is to upgrade to a premium business account. With chase, their premium business account for $95/month you get 4 or 5 free international wires, that hasn't changed at all.

This is getting blown way out of proportion.

BTW, Dwolla and checks to campbx still work fine too.

This won't effect coinbase at all.

[theonewhowaskazu]

Well, US bank still allows it so I'm fine. I wouldn't be surprised if they try to cut it off too, though.

[MAbtc]

Makes it more difficult to send international wires, but not impossible by any means. Neither bank is prohibiting all of their busienss customers from sending wires, rather only the basic, entry level business checking accounts are no longer permitted. All that is necessary is to upgrade to a premium business account. With chase, their premium business account for $95/month you get 4 or 5 free international wires, that hasn't changed at all.

This is getting blown way out of proportion.

This is the conclusion that I am coming to as well. It seems that they are just jacking up the rates for certain banking features -- i.e. making it more expensive for you to send international wires.

[BitcoinAshley]

Increasing the price of the transfers is effectively a restriction, although not a complete one obviously. You can still do it. It will just cost 2 or 3 times as much.

On the other hand, transferring millions of $$ overseas instantly using Bitcoin is still the same price. And you don't need to upgrade to a premium business account to do it.

Maybe people who rely on international wires to get funds to an exchange will have to find a less expensive way to do it. But where there's demand, supply often has a funny way of showing up. So they will find a way. And is this really a significant portion of BTC users? Significant enough to affect price? I doubt it.

So I say, no effect except that now BTC becomes ever-so-slightly more attractive to people looking for international wires that are cheaper than bank wires and Western Union. Sure there are still downsides to BTC, but that hasn't changed - and now wire transfers for certain banks have more downside.