- Commonwealth Bank takes a turn on its crypto stance and puts a hold on specific crypto transactions.
- Commonwealth’s decision comes amidst Binance and Coinbase court battle with the U.S. SEC.
- Another major Australian bank put out a ban on Binance weeks ago.
Australia’s largest Bank, Commonwealth Bank (CBA), has announced its intention to decline or temporarily put a hold on certain payments to cryptocurrency exchanges, adding the possibility of scammers as a reason.
Commonwealth Bank’s move comes amidst a lawsuit between the Securities and Exchange Commission and two major global cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States.
A few weeks ago, another significant Australian bank, Westpac, banned transactions with Binance on their customers.
Commonwealth Bank announced earlier in the day, at the time of writing, their decision to put a 24-hour hold on certain payments to crypto exchanges as a part of their new strategy to protect their users and customers from any scam risks associated with making payments to cryptocurrency exchanges.
A spokesperson for the Bank told Cointelegraph that, at the moment, the Bank would hold out on providing any further information in public or to customers on what specific payments it would put a hold on or block, citing the risk of scammers finding out and bypassing the changes.
In an added statement, the Bank announced that they would soon introduce 10,000 Australian dollars ($6,650) per month to customers sending funds for crypto-related purchases in the coming months.
In their report, Commonwealth Bank announced that they would decline or withhold for 24 hours specific payments to cryptocurrency exchanges and, in the coming months, will introduce a new spending limit for cryptocurrency purchases for their customers, where the Bank can identify where the customers’ payments are to going to and for what cryptocurrency purchases they are going into.
James Robert, the general manager for the Bank’s fraud management services, claimed a global phenomenon of scammers capitalizing on the interest users have in crypto and putting up the pretense of being legitimate investment opportunities to lure victims or diverting funds into crypto exchanges.
However, Commonwealth Bank added that the new measures would be subject to reviews, and they would continue to monitor the impact of the standards.
This move was an unexpected turn for CBA when just about a year and a half ago, the Bank was about to launch its crypto trading services for users on their CommBank app.
Conclusion
The CEO of the Bank, Matt Comyn, said the Bank currently sees risks in participating in crypto but more significant risks in not participating and added that he believed the crypto sector and its technology would be around for a while.
The CEO had still been battling with regulators in May 2022 over the launch of the Bank’s crypto product. The regulators eventually won the battle, and the pilot launch for the product was put on hold.
