One step forward, two steps back?
The progress made by the crypto industry over the last couple of months is impeccable. The demand for crypto hasn’t simmered down despite its recent downfall. Countries, as well as platforms across the globe, have been embracing and onboarding digital assets. Amidst this digital revolution, financial institutions like banks play a significant role. Unfortunately, while an array of banks worldwide have been putting forward crypto-friendly notions, a few others have been outrightly condemning the same.
Joining the latter, a prominent British lender, TSB, announced that it would be laying out rules that prohibit its clients from engaging in digital asset-related activities.
In a recent report by Insider, it was revealed that TSB would be banning its customers from purchasing cryptocurrencies. Fraud was one of the primary reasons behind the bank’s latest move. The bank reportedly believed that it would be too expensive to reimburse its clients in case of any untimely loss.
The bank’s spokesperson said,
“We take our obligation to protect customers extremely seriously and continually review merchants and websites with excessively high fraud rates.”
Several speculated that Binance’s recent feud with the Financial Conduct Authority influenced the bank’s decision. However, about 849 TSB clients’ funds were compromised through their Binance accounts between March 15th and April 15th, and this fact couldn’t have been overlooked either.
Crypto derivatives to remain a dream for Chinese users?
While TSB was taking down the crypto scene in the UK, Huobi, a prominent digital asset exchange, decided to exclude retail customers from the UK from trading crypto derivatives.
Huobi Global, in its updated user agreement page, pointed out that several countries would no longer be able to utilize the exchange’s crypto derivatives feature. This list included China, Taiwan, Israel, Iraq, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ecuador, Kyrgyzstan, Sevastopol, and the UK.
China has been making headlines for its recent digital asset takedown. With the government shutting down numerous mining farms across the region, speculations of China embracing its CBDC, the digital yuan, and shooting down assets like Bitcoin [BTC], surfaced. The country could be headed towards a blanket ban on the industry.