Typical Banks
It is not a great secret that banks do not like cryptocurrency. Those of us who are involved in it and watch things closely know it is a threat to their very existence. For this reason, banks are doing whatever they can to cut people off from it.
Andreas Antonopolous just had the ability to accept credit card payments on his website cut off by his payment processor because he accepts crypto on there (in addition to being one of the leading speaking proponents of it). Thus, we see companies involved in cryptocurrency receiving the same treatment as those involved in cannabis and adult entertainment.
Banks across the globe are stopping people from buying cryptocurrency using their charge cards or bank accounts. This started in 2017 and keeps growing.
Now, we see a bank in Denmark taking it to another level. This is one of Europe's 20 largest banks and it decided to bank all 30,000 employees from buying cryptocurrency.
The bank claims that cryptocurrency is too risk for employees due to its unregulated and volatile nature.
Nordea Bank even had their policy upheld in court. This means that the employees of that banks are banned from owning cryptocurrency.
What is ironic about this situation is that this same bank, was fined in 2017 for money laundering.
Case in point, in May 2017, Nordea Bank booked a €95 million provision in anticipation of a fine, joining the likes of Danske Bank and Swedbank, for their alleged involvement in money laundering. The booking was partly an acknowledgement for their weak enforcement of KYC and AML rules.
https://coingape.com/over-30000-bank-employees-barred-from-buying-bitcoin-btc/
Of course, banks and politicians long maintained that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency is used for illegal activities. While the true statistics reveal that only a small percentage of transactions are illegal in nature, this does not stop the rhetoric.
I guess it ultimately comes down to the fact that Nordea, along with the other banks, does not like the competition when it comes to illegal activities. In the United States, fines to the banks since the last financial collapse exceeded $250 billion.
Yet people believe that cryptocurrencies exist solely for illicit activities.
The reality is banks are going to do whatever they can to keep their system in place. They have fared very well doing basically what they wanted while the regulators were always a few steps behind. Cryptocurrency gives people an option which enables them to opt out of the current system. Since it is still in its infancy, the banks have a small window which they can try to hold on.
After that, the proverbial horse is out of the barn, never to return.
Once there are hundreds of millions of people involved, there is no turning back.
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