Australia’s Bendigo Bank has become the fourth major bank in the country to announce a ban on “high-risk cryptocurrency payments”, citing the need to protect customers from investment scams.
The bank said on July 31 that it implemented new rules for instant payments to cryptocurrency exchanges, which Bendigo Bank’s head of fraud Jason Gordon said added “some friction to some real payments” and that the reason for the blockade was to combat fraud Sexual payments and enhanced protections for 2.3 million customers.
Chengyi Ong, Asia Pacific head of policy at Chainaanalysis, warned that such actions would force Australia’s cryptocurrency public to interact with offshore exchanges.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank (NAB) and Westpac have followed suit in recent months.