First UK Bank Bans Businesses Accepting Bitcoin

[tyz]

How will they ban it? i mean in what way?

No, they can freeze or cancel your bank account as soon as you do Bitcoin-related business with it. This can be transactions from crypto exchanges like Coinbase, for example. Banks are also obliged to ask where larger amounts come from (at least in the EU, but Britain is no longer a member of the EU, so this may have changed).

[mu_enrico]

This is a strange policy since AFAIK UK doesn't ban Bitcoin. Why would they ban it if the government allow it? It's only crypto derivatives that have been banned.
Imagine you deposit or withdraw from exchange and get your account frozen. Not cool, not cool at all!

I wonder if there is another motive behind this decision? Hmm..

[Fortify]

First, Natwest don't say anything about this situation on their announcement page  so I don't know legit is the news and if it is the truth the reason behind their ban of the crypto-related transaction will definitely be their unsettle money laundering accusation but Natwest wasn't the first UK Bank to ban their business account holder customers from accepting crypto-related transactions and if you ask people from the UK or do some few research online or this forum you'll find out some banks in the UK have already don't that before now but the news about Natwest ban was known to the public because of money laundering issue
Institutional money will never overcome these obstacles but I don't see other banks with clean records follow the suit.

"According to a Guardian report, the bank’s head of risk Morten Friis told investors at an online event on Wednesday that NatWest has “no appetite” for dealing with customers whose main business is backed by the exchange of crypto."

The guardian is fairly reputable and there is most likely a copy of this online event recorded for investor purposes. If the head of risk is saying that they have no interest in supporting business customers who are using cryptocurrency, then that will filter through to their account management policy. They may very well be reaching out to customers and trying to handle the situation delicately as they close any accounts.

An unexpected decision. The pound's liquidity cannot be compared to the US dollar or the euro, so they are managing businesses in their country with just the pound. The adoption of cryptocurrency or Bitcoin will only make managing their currency more difficult. They only hedge against the risk of losing the liquidity of the pound worldwide.

Err, yes it can. The pound is very liquid and is held in many currency baskets alongside the Euro and Dollar. Of course they will primarily manage businesses in the currency of the country they are based, how they are hedging the pound is totally irrelevant to this news. It is not totally unexpected because other banks do operate a sort of grey area and have been known to quietly shut down accounts that have been found related to bitcoin transactions.

[Husires]

Banks that are afraid of checking or examining their clients' data will initiate to ban crypto trading in to avoid being exposed to their activities, which may include money laundering.
Accepting bitcoin will not bring money to banking system and they may pay more money for payment fees.
bank will accept bitcoin payment using payment network as Visa/Mastercard.
I do not see that all banks take such a step. In the end, the matter varies according to the bank’s regulations and the nature of economic activities.

[Cling18]

I think it's the best time for users to switch to other banks that accept Bitcoin transactions. This kind of bank might see Bitcoin as a treat but they should also accept the reality that most people make money with crypto these days and accepting different transactions through it wouldn't affect their reputation since they've asked for KYC which most banks do.

[just_Alice]

I think the NatWest may indeed be afraid of even more accusations and charges by the FCA, they're facing enough troubles as it is due to this money-laundering scandal. Given the situation, the NatWest bank is probably trying to make every possible effort and show that they're transparent.

Especially this is intensified by the fact, that FCA has expressed distrust towards cryptocurrencies many times in the past.

[SirLancelot]

NatWest, a relatively well known UK bank (out of roughly 20) has decided to ban any businesses from using its accounts for any Bitcoin related transactions. I wonder if this is a sign of things to come, if I remember correctly this bank has been caught up in a money laundering scandal in the recent past and maybe it is getting jittery - even if the general trend is towards opening up cryptocurrency related services. Banks can also be "on the hook" if companies using their facilities have not performed proper checks on their customers transactions and you could say there is a lot of hard to trace funds floating around. Do you think other banks will follow suit? If they do, will we see the Bitcoin price sink in future or can institutional money overcome these obstacles?

If all the banks should continue like that I think businesses that are related to bitcoin or that has something to do with it like accepting it as payment, will all be affected if banks stops them from accepting payments that has to do with cryptocurrency, and those that relies fully on it will run out of business since that’s what they are fully into. So, I wouldn’t like if all the banks there should do the same as this bank has done.

By the way, it’s just an ordinary bank, so I don’t think it’s anything to be afraid about, if it was coming from their central bank, then we would have known that it will be carried out by every bank, but since it is not, then they are safe.

[Kakmakr]

I think they are just killing the competition... because they cannot allow some other technology to steal the limelight.. when it comes to money laundering. What will happen with their profits, if criminals stop using Banks to launder their money? 

We saw other Banks in the UK also doing that in the past, but it still did not stop people from using it.  Some of these Banks are still stuck in the dark ages, where they think Monopolies will survive..... not even the Royal Family can resist the changes that are taking place. 

[cheezcarls]

Came across this potentially damaging development for Bitcoin today:

https://capital.com/natwest-bans-business-cryptocurrency-transactions

NatWest, a relatively well known UK bank (out of roughly 20) has decided to ban any businesses from using its accounts for any Bitcoin related transactions. I wonder if this is a sign of things to come, if I remember correctly this bank has been caught up in a money laundering scandal in the recent past and maybe it is getting jittery - even if the general trend is towards opening up cryptocurrency related services. Banks can also be "on the hook" if companies using their facilities have not performed proper checks on their customers transactions and you could say there is a lot of hard to trace funds floating around. Do you think other banks will follow suit? If they do, will we see the Bitcoin price sink in future or can institutional money overcome these obstacles?

Majority of the UK banks these days aren't friendly to cryptocurrencies, as they are banning their citizens from engaging business or doing crypto exchanging from time to time. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there are licensed and regulated Bitcoin ATMs that they can use for depositing and withdrawing cryptocurrencies. I also believe there is no problem with P2P transactions either like in Nigeria. It looks like they are afraid that people might start moving their savings to Bitcoin.

[Vaskiy]

This is real fear about the market. NatWest might have made a big investment, and the crash could've caused them a big fall in their market value. Other than this there is no big incident that has happened around for the ban of businesses accepting bitcoin. We are not sure of the internal things happening within the network.

Anyhow it is time for NatWest to loose its customers, because at the moment two out of ten people are aware and one out of the ten uses Bitcoin in some way.

[Twentyonepaylots]

A bank is a bank. It will do its best to ensure that the fiat that it keeps and creates remain relevant for as long as they like. That's why it's no new news to us to hear about banks imposing ban on people's accounts that they have found using bitcoin or using their accounts for cryptocurrency purposes. But the future catches up with everyone, and the future badly needs a new form of monetary system where the power is given back to the ones that circulate it, not the ones that hoard and keep it.

[magneto]

Look, this has happened in the past and is bound to happen as the mass adoption stage goes underway.

There has been various instances of this happening in banks across the world, not just the UK. Most banks, even if they don't explicitly ban the transfer of funds for the purposes of trading/transacting with cryptos, would not be particularly pleased if they found out that you trade bitcoin.

I've personally gotten my account suspended temporarily for just selling BTC on LBC for a few hundred bucks. Absolutely draconian stuff that reinforces the need for decentralisation.

[jaysabi]

Maybe they bought some coinbase stock (or want to) .

Banks are weird old structures that probably fear the use of cryptocurrencies as they may be able to push them out of the sector when fees become reasonable. Some banks are trying to adopt and use crypto and others just seem to be trying to make things more difficult to use.

In reality, the only people that can stop crypto have too much control over the market that they'll be forced to split (VISA). I'm not sure how far they are from an investigation into being a monopoly but I imagine they're trying to look fairly neutral to most things.

How can Visa stop crypto? I don't think they could even if they wanted to considering there's literally nothing they can do to stop people from using crypto the same as they couldn't stop them from using cash. And Visa is nowhere near a monopoly. Mastercard, Discover, and American Express have far too much market share for anyone of these companies to be a monopoly.