Starling Bank’s crypto clampdown 

Starling Bank recently announced it would no longer be supporting cryptocurrency transactions in an effort to continue its crackdown on financial crime. The digital challenger bank told its customers of the ban earlier this week via a notification through their app.  

While customers have never been able to hold crypto assets with the bank, Starling’s new restrictions mean that customers won’t be able to use a Starling account to withdraw or deposit fiat monies in or out of crypto exchanges. When asked why they have placed a restriction on crypto transactions, Starling took to Twitter and said: 

We always review our position in relation to financial crime. We consider crypto activity to be high risk. We’ve taken the decision to prevent all card payments to crypto merchants and to implement further restrictions on outgoing and incoming transfers.

Starling’s restriction on customer crypto activity is the latest in a series of new measures imposed by other UK banking giants including Lloyds, Barclays, and RBS, who have blocked card payments and transactions with crypto exchanges. It’s also not the first time that the bank has criticised cryptocurrency – Starling’s CEO Anne Boden stated in an interview that their customers were being ‘scammed’ by people in the crypto sector.  

With the crypto asset landscape ever evolving, our financial services specialists are here to help with clarifying regulations and keeping you ahead of the curve when it comes to regulatory changes.