How do banks feel about cryptocurrency?

4 min readFeb 21, 2022

Why is it complicated to open a bank account for a crypto business?

Banks are worried — Konstantin Evdokimov- Piggybank in a mask

Although cryptocurrencies are earning on their popularity and their use-cases are getting wider like NFTs artist, NFT marketplaces, DeFi, Blockchain games, crypto exchanges, etc… In the last year, we have seen a massive growth of the whole market. Despite the mass adoption, we must see a collaboration between traditional financial institutions and cryptocurrency businesses to continue with the growth.

Banks’ current reflection is that their inherent risks overshadow their potential benefits. Banks are believing that transactions with cryptocurrencies are presenting a high-risk industry and requires in-depth due diligence, but cryptocurrencies may offer comprehensive benefits to financial institutions, customer, and the banking sector.

The key challenge that we noticed with companies, like NFTs artists, NFT marketplaces, DeFi, Blockchain games, crypto exchanges, that operate in the virtual currency area face, is getting and maintaining a bank account so they can pay their employees, suppliers and serve customers.

Why Banks are worried about Cryptocurrencies?

The traditional banking institutions are slow to adjust to new regulations and regulatory frameworks. If you as a business owner of the crypto company goes to the bank requesting opening a bank account, once you mention that you are operating in “that bitcoin stuff” 95% of banks will not permit you to open a bank account, or worse- they will open a bank account for you and after some period they will shut it down and give you 14 day to withdraw the capital. It is no wonder that banks are acting like that since there are no yet clear regulations in all countries of Europe. (not earlier than in 2 years there will be: MiCa). Additional reasons:

Decentralized Character

Crypto assets were designed as an alternative to traditional banking infrastructure that doesn’t need an intermediary and isn’t tethered to the capacity of a centralized government, bank. Instead of depending on centralized intermediaries in these transactions, the trust is seated in the blockchain code and the distributed nature of the blockchain.

The decentralized nature of the currency is seen to undermine the power of central banks, leaving some to believe that they won’t be needed anymore, or they’ll be unable to control the money supply.

AML/KYC Concerns

Many banks are concerned about the lack of anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) regulations surrounding digital currency transactions. Frequently, banks are under the impression that cryptocurrency transactions can’t be tracked for AML and KYC considerations, which could lead to illegal activity and scams on the network.

Volatility

The price of cryptocurrencies has generally been volatile over their short life. Banks see this as a risk because historically, the price hasn’t been stable, so they believe the currency might not remain a stable investment vehicle over time.

Our compliance officer has written also his point of view on the bank's approach:

Reality strikes back to the crypto world?!

As a professional working in the crypto world, I have found that it is well known that the crypto enthusiast community…

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