Australian Bank Bars Credit Card Purchase On Cryptocurrency

Australia’s biggest bank has prohibited its clients from purchasing digital currencies like bitcoin utilizing its Visas, beginning today.

Refering to an absence of regulation and high unpredictability of digital currencies, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has discontinued Mastercard buys of digital currencies. The curb will likewise stretch out to Perth-based Bankwest, a bank completely obtained by the CBA with operations in the nation. The limitation won’t stretch out to banking customers who will even now have the capacity to purchase and offer digital currencies utilizing their debit cards.

In a declaration, the bank disclosed its call to ban clients from utilizing its credit cards for crypto buys, expressing:

“We have made this decision because we believe virtual currencies do not meet a minimum standard of regulation, reliability, and reputation when compared to currencies that we offer to our customers. Given the dynamic, volatile nature of virtual currency markets, this position is regularly reviewed.”

In doing as such, the CBA has turned into the first Australian bank to shield its clients from utilizing its Visas for purchasing digital curerencies. Be that as it may, recent comments from the nation’s remaining big four’ banks propose the shift in policy is probably not going to become a trend.

As revealed a week ago, a representative for ANZ affirmed the bank “does not prohibit” digital currency buys, nor does it keep clients from “accepting them as a form of payment.” Westpac, Australia’s second-biggest bank, added it didn’t put any limitations on obtaining digital currencies.

CBA joins a select number of credit card lenders, for example, UK’s Llyods and stateside US banks in JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citi who have barred clients from Mastercard buys of digital currencies this month.