Banking giant Santander has restricted crypto payments for mobile banking customers (Andrew Matthews/ PA)
(Picture: PA Archive)Santander has intensified its crackdown on customer crypto trading as the bank set fresh limits on transactions in Bitcoin and Ethereum and warned of the risks of investing in crypto assets.
From the 15th of November, Santander mobile and online banking customers will be restricted to a £1,000 limit for individual cryptocurrency transactions and a £3,000 cap on transactions in a rolling 30-day period. Payments sent to cryptocurrency exchange Binance will continue to be blocked, while payments from cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance, will still be permitted.
Santander is the latest bank to impose restrictions on customer crypto activity, joining the likes of Lloyds, Barclays and RBS who have imposed a range of new measures including blocking credit card payments and blocking transactions with crypto exchanges. 47% of UK banks don’t allow customers to interact with crypto exchanges, according to personal finance comparison site finder.com.
In a statement posted to their website Santander told customers: “In recent months we’ve seen a large increase in UK customers become victims of cryptocurrency fraud.
“We want to do everything we can to protect our customers and we feel that limiting payments to cryptocurrency exchanges is the best way to make sure your money stays safe.”
The clampdown by Santander comes in stark contrast to fintech firm Revolut, who earlier this week announced the launch of a new crypto card. Revolut’s Pay with Crypto feature offers customers a 1% cashback in crypto for purchases paid with any of the close to 100 supported tokens, including Dogecoin, Bitcoin and Ethereum. The cashback is paid out in the same currency that the spend is in – so if the spend is in Dogecoin the 1% cashback is also paid out in Dogecoin.
Emil Urmanshin, Revolut’s Crypto General Manager, said: “We are making crypto even more mainstream, by empowering people to use crypto-enabled cards to spend their tokens for everyday purchases.”
