Australian bank to reject some payments to crypto exchanges.
The Commonwealth Bank (CBA), the largest bank in Australia, has announced that it will reject or temporarily hold certain payments to cryptocurrency exchanges due to the risk of scams. The decision comes as two major global exchanges face a lawsuit from the US securities regulator, and just a few weeks after another major Australian bank, Westpac, banned customers from transacting with crypto exchange Binance.
CBA stated on June 8 that it would decline or place a 24-hour hold on “certain payments to cryptocurrency exchanges” as part of “new measures to help protect customers from scam risks associated with making certain payments to cryptocurrency exchanges.” A CBA spokesperson told Cointelegraph that, for now, it would not provide further information publicly or to customers on what payment types it would block or hold, citing the risk of scammers circumventing the changes.
The bank also announced a $10,000 Australian dollar ($6,650) per month limit on customers sending funds to crypto exchanges to purchase cryptocurrencies, which would be introduced “in the coming months.”
James Roberts, the general manager of CBA’s fraud management services, claimed that “scammers globally are capitalizing” on the interest in crypto, pretending to be “legitimate investment opportunities or diverting funds into cryptocurrency exchanges.”
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The bank said the measure would be “subject to ongoing review,” and it would monitor the impact of the measures. This is a major reversal for the bank, which was set to launch crypto trading services for the millions of users of its CommBank app just over a year and a half ago in November 2021.
