In 2018, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) wrote to the heads of the country’s biggest high street banks to emphasize the importance of due diligence when dealing with crypto businesses. That seems to have led to widespread high-risk ratings and bans on crypto-related banking, impacting both crypto businesses hoping to operate in the U.K. and investors alike.
Banks are, understandably and responsibly, concerned with scams, but the current situation creates uncertainty. Crypto investors need to be able to move their money around as they like, and crypto businesses need access to payment rails for a variety of other reasons, such as paying staff and suppliers.
A catch-22 that harms market competition
By barring crypto businesses from accessing “mainstream” banking, organizations are forced to use payment service providers (PSPs), which are rated higher risk by banks because they’re also used by the gambling industry. There’s a lack of nuance in this process, with banks tending to blanket block transactions through PSPs.
Related: Federal regulators are preparing to pass judgment on Ethereum
When it comes to specific services such as payment handling, refusing to service crypto also harms market competition. There’s a sense that banks are reluctant to derisk crypto and make crypto-to-bank payments easier because they feel it cannibalizes their own market. If that’s true, then the regulator needs to step in to maintain market competition.
Restricting individuals’ freedoms
Banks’ economic risk-reward calculations mean they continue to dip their toes in offering banking services to crypto-asset service providers, but those relationships are fraught. Take, for instance, Barclays providing faster payment services to Coinbase, which ended abruptly after three months. It’s likely that the risk was deemed too great in return for the reward of the amount of funds.
Increasingly, banks are blocking crypto payments entirely or triggering their fraud prevention processes wherein customers are called to verify that transactions are made with an understanding of the “risks.” That’s an infringement on ordinary people’s freedom to do what they like with their finances, and the risk weighting given to crypto-related transactions simply isn’t justified.
Banks are contradicting themselves
Although crypto businesses struggle to open bank accounts and investors have their freedoms curtailed, there is significant interest in crypto from…
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