Irish banks and crypto

soirish

Are there any cases of Irish banks that would block or freeze customers accounts due to crypto transfers?

https://www.cryptostache.com/2017/11/21/bank-america-froze-bank-account-buying-crypto/

Matt Simis

soirish wrote: »

Are there any cases of Irish banks that would block or freeze customers accounts due to crypto transfers?

https://www.cryptostache.com/2017/11/21/bank-america-froze-bank-account-buying-crypto/

Yes, any bank thats affiliated with Bank of America. BOI already told me they would shutdown any business account doing business with anything to do with crypto. Pretty pathetic.

smacl

Matt Simis wrote: »

Yes, any bank thats affiliated with Bank of America. BOI already told me they would shutdown any business account doing business with anything to do with crypto. Pretty pathetic.

That's good to know. So basically if I wanted to invest money from my company in crypto it is a non-runner as it could jeopardise the company account. Time to build that sweet sweet mining rig buy that much needed new rack server to consolidate and virtualise our stock of ageing PCs :pac:

Matt Simis

Matt Simis wrote: »

Yes, any bank thats affiliated with Bank of America. BOI already told me they would shutdown any business account doing business with anything to do with crypto. Pretty pathetic.

That's concerning overall.

However, when I think about it a bit, there is a measure of sense to it with business accounts - Say that B.O.I. have been keeping your business flowing with a good line of credit. You now decide to buy into something which is known as being highly volatile, the 'Wild West', and could potentially ruin what BOI have 'invested' in with you as a business customer.

Fine, I can see the sense in measures employed to prevent that. If that is in fact B.O.I.'s reason for doing this.

However, if I heard that Irish banks are prohibiting personal customers from dealing with crypto-related transactions, that would be a completely different thing. Whether you have an outstanding credit balance with your bank or not.

So far, from my own experience with my non-B.O.I. (Irish) bank, I've had no problems depositing or withdrawing FIAT on Coinbase from my personal account.

Matt Simis

That really has nothing to do with it. Specifically BOI weren't providing me or my past employer with any credit. That also isnt Bank of America's issue either. Officially: They dont want to associate as officially its unregulated so they feel they don't know whats going on and with who. Their own processes are so slow and backward they are not in a position to lead the market in actually facilitating business in this industry and will sit this one out till a competitor bank or regulator shows them what to do.

Unofficially: Its not in their business interests to facilitate growth in an industry that so successfully disintermediates them they become unnecessary for any of their core business services. Crypto-currencies are an existential risk to their legacy business and they have insufficient leadership abilities internally to adapt to the change.


In the UK some of the banks are monitoring accounts and actively shutting down anyone that does anything with Crypto. Here they will if you draw attention to it.

soirish

Matt Simis wrote: »

Here they will if you draw attention to it.

Did you read or hear anything?

Dohnjoe

Matt Simis wrote: »

Crypto-currencies are an existential risk to their legacy business and they have insufficient leadership abilities internally to adapt to the change.

Crypto "currencies" aren't a risk to banks, only to the public if we eventually blow too much cash on a bubble or lose it to scams, ponzi's, and so on

Banks are just doing due diligence, they don't want to risk getting in **** with regulators and if crypto is potentially seen as laundering/fraud gateway, some banks will simply not touch it yet... at least not until there is some official central view on it, not worth the risk to them

Bandara

Matt Simis wrote: »

Yes, any bank thats affiliated with Bank of America. BOI already told me they would shutdown any business account doing business with anything to do with crypto. Pretty pathetic.

Hi Matt

I’ve used a business account in BOI for Coinbase, Bitstamp, BitPanda and Huobi without any issues.

They may threaten it, but under what grounds would they do it, once the account is healthy and in credit they have no reason to go there.

And if brought before the banking ombudsman they would be on severely shakely ground

Bandara

Mr.S wrote: »

I don’t get why you would want to use an existing business account to trade crypto in the first place?

Because if you have significant amounts on deposit for the banks .25% interest returns you can use this money far more effectively as an investment tool

Matt Simis

soirish wrote: »

Did you read or hear anything?

Yes, they told me. I asked again yesterday at the Crypto meetup (Founders Friday in Greystones) and the BOI rep and the rest of the people there confirmed it. They (BOI) will not allow you to run a business in the crypto sphere. The rest I expect problems with too, but BOI are real clear at the moment.

Mr.S wrote: »

Is this on a credit card account / access to large lines of credit? If so, totally understandable.
Personal current accounts, no banks will care at all. Why would they?

I don’t get why you would want to use an existing business account to trade crypto in the first place?

Nope, just a regular business (company) account. This isnt my news, this is happening all over Europe and the US!
Also, I to clarify Im not talking about just an individual trading crypto on a personal level. Scale it up however..

Bandara wrote: »

Hi Matt

I’ve used a business account in BOI for Coinbase, Bitstamp, BitPanda and Huobi without any issues.

They may threaten it, but under what grounds would they do it, once the account is healthy and in credit they have no reason to go there.

And if brought before the banking ombudsman they would be on severely shakely ground

Im not talking about using it for buying Crypto personally, Im talking about setting up a company in this sphere and trying to use a normal bank account for actually doing business. They will not allow you to use their services and will actively shut you down. Same is happening the UK, google it.

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Crypto "currencies" aren't a risk to banks, only to the public if we eventually blow too much cash on a bubble or lose it to scams, ponzi's, and so on

If what we are doing isn't disrupting the banks and a swath of their chargeable products and bringing entirely new products to market in a manner and pace they cannot match... then we are completely wasting our time. Ive just came from a meeting in Deloitte and they are trying to get the banking sector geared up for the tidal wave of disruption thats coming towards them, even if they are putting roadblocks in the way. So Im going to have to disagree on your assertion there is no risk to banks at play, quite the opposite IMO.


Ps: On rereading the OP's question I answered something slightly different. I have not heard of them caring if you buy some crypto as an individual (It's not heroin or weapons or OFAC listed). But if you are a business and want to get involved in some manner then yes ( and nothing to do with credit).

Dohnjoe

Matt Simis wrote: »

If what we are doing isn't disrupting the banks and a swath of their chargeable products and bringing entirely new products to market in a manner and pace they cannot match... then we are completely wasting our time.

I don't follow the disrupting part. Are there examples of something that isn't currently being internally developed or adopted by banks/financial infrastructure that is going to seriously affect their business

Even when it comes to the secondary market speculation (99.99% use of crypto right now) the banks could make a fortune as safekeepers, custodians, infrastructure if regulators gave it the greenlight (over the not-so-regulated, unrated, shady exchanges and "lose everything in a second" personal wallet system we use presently)

Ive just came from a meeting in Deloitte and they are trying to get the banking sector geared up for the tidal wave of disruption thats coming towards them, even if they are putting roadblocks in the way. So Im going to have to disagree on your assertion there is no risk to banks at play, quite the opposite IMO.

Most major banks and institutions have been keenly interested in blockchain and distributed ledger technology for quite some time now and are developing in-house or adopting current tech.

Any fly-by-night entrepreneur or company can come up with "exciting" sounding super-modern blockchain-in-their-name ideas (e.g. a lending platform) and sell them via ICOs to a pretty dumb speculative market

The reality is that it doesn't matter how fancy that technology is - no one is going to borrow significantly from a company that isn't externally rated by a recognised rating agency, that doesn't meet basic capital requirements, that doesn't have a compliance department, isn't audited externally, that isn't insured, that doesn't offer the same protections to customers and the public

A payday loan company with blockchain in the name is still a payday loan company.

Using buzzwords like "disruption" without context is meaningless. The banking industry is not concerned about "crypto", quite the opposite, it's excited about the technology that can seriously streamline the business

Matt Simis

Dohnjoe wrote: »

I don't follow the disrupting part. Are there examples of something that isn't currently being internally developed or adopted by banks/financial infrastructure that is going to seriously affect their business

Using buzzwords like "disruption" without context is meaningless. The banking industry is not concerned about "crypto", quite the opposite, it's excited about the technology that can seriously streamline the business

Look, this isn't the thread for this. As some disclosure, I worked in Fintech for a decade, specifically helping banks integrate new tech and product (and if you want more disclosure, 4 of those years in PayPal as a Global Integration Manager for API products). Its my view and that of many (all?) of my peers that blockchain tech specifically, along with digital currencies are going to massively disrupt the banking sector unless they either get on-board or come up with something competitive. I have never met a single person of influence in a bank that is excited about where this has gone thus far or the pace of it which is lightyears from theirs. You can disagree with that all you want, I'm literally talking from first hand experience working with banks in Ireland and NZ right now and for the last decade.

EDIT: If however you work for a bank that isnt afraid of working in this area let me know!

Mr.S wrote: »

Could you explain what you mean by 'a business and want to get involved' do you mean along the lines of an investment fund type deal? Genuinely interested.

You raise a good point though, once credit is not involved, I don't see why the bank should or would care. The examples blowing up on reddit seem to all be related to US customers purchasing from exchanges with credit cards, I can kind of see why the banks would block that - especially in the US where personal accounts get huge lines of credit.

I'm working on a Micro-Investment product to allow people to invest in crypto-assets without the insanity of the applying for and then learning how to use exchanges and all the other 24-7 market watching pressures that come with it.

lifeandtimes

Regarding the op in my opinion I think because banks haven't adopted crypto and it's still all technically new to them,any business who put money there instead of the bank will raise flags 2 fold.

1. Possible money laundering

2. Because a business account gets special rates and to be taking money out of it and putting it somewhere to potentially make more money that they may never see, will not sit well with them.

I agree with the above poster.

Banks need to get on board sharpish, they need to put pressure on the regulators to allow them to hold crypto and from there on design accounts that cant hold both fiat and crypto.

This in turn will merge the gap between people who have no idea how to use crypto and the people who do and want the convenience of an all in one bank account.

This will make crypto more mainstream and in turn more valuable for the people who already hold it.

If banks don't adopt fast they will be run out of business in the next 20- 30 years as more and more people adopt to crypto as it starts to be more widely accepted.

I believe the turning point will be the first business to offer it's employees payment in cryrpo

Dohnjoe

Matt Simis wrote: »

Its my view and that of many (all?) of my peers that blockchain tech specifically, along with digital currencies are going to massively disrupt the banking sector unless they either get on-board or come up with something competitive.

I'm also in the industry. Almost every major bank is either developing the tech or partnering with companies or groups that are. This stuff is being announced every other day; JPM, BNY, Morgan Stanley, Goldman, HSBC, Santander, DB, CS, UBS, etc

Perhaps its not happening fast enough for some people, it took them twenty years to go from paper stocks to digital. I sit 10 feet away from a blockchain whitepaper in work, it's pretty impressive, but it's not going to happen overnight, especially not involving systems that have to account for trillions in assets, income, new issues, etc with a very low tolerance for errors, risk, failure. It takes years to develop and implement some of this stuff, and for good reason.

Maybe on a granular level, high str and commercial banks are slow on the up-take, but in general the industry is keen about anything that can streamline their painfully expensive and slow linear processes without putting themselves or their clients at added risk

Blockchain and associated tech represents another level in efficiency, speed and streamlining. But the secondary Mad Max market that fuels growth in this area; Initial coin offerings, coins, exchanges, etc.. these represent high risk, low regulation.

In my opinion it's important to separate the two. From experience and information so far, industry is more interested in the former, not so much the latter.

By this stage we've spent years hearing about how crypto tech is going to make banks or market infrastructure or central banking or the mortgage industry redundant.. cool, fair enough.. but when asking for tangible examples, there's rarely a response

And back on subject, banks are risk-averse. Under post-crisis climate they don't really want to touch anything that may cause them issues with regulators. If one of their clients is up to dodgy ****, the bank is deemed responsible for not conducting their due diligence and compliance checks. So I wouldn't be surprised if some banks just say a blanket no to crypto for now. I don't blame them either, there are people on these forums literally explaining how they are using crypto to evade taxes. I've never spoken to a financial analyst who hasn't described crypto (not blockchain) but crypto as shady as hell. I've been into crypto myself for years, it's a far better vehicle than fiat cash for laundering, fraud, scams, hacks, black market ****, you name it. The technology is fantastic, but it's got this unregulated high-risk grey area tag attached, which some banks may not want to touch yet.

I'm sure we can come up with a list of banks that accept or don't accept crypto-related cash movements

lifeandtimes

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Almost every major bank is either developing the tech or partnering with companies or groups that are.

Goldman

Goldmann Sachs are developing their own coin.

Be interesting to see when it releases