As part of new efforts to safeguard consumers from scammers, Australia’s largest bank stated that it would prohibit some payments to digital asset exchanges.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) announced on Thursday that the additional regulations would include entire bans on several exchanges. It did not, however, identify the exchanges that would be affected.
In some cases, payments to select exchanges will be held for 24 hours.
To combat scammers, CBA will soon impose a monthly transfer restriction of AUD 10,000 (US$6,666) on exchanges.
“Customers who make payments to cryptocurrency exchanges now have a substantially higher chance of being duped,” said James Roberts, the bank’s general manager for fraud management services.
“There are a disproportionate amount of frauds in which the proceeds are transferred via bitcoin exchanges.” “We’re finding it nearly impossible to retrieve funds from those entities when money gets to such exchanges,” he continued.
The CBA’s restriction comes less than a month after Westpac, Australia’s fourth largest bank, announced a similar action. Westpac, on the other hand, was more precise than CBA, suggesting that the ban would primarily affect high-risk offshore exchanges like as Binance.
CBA’s Roberts denied that the restriction is related to the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s legal action against Binance for ‘calculated evasion’ of US securities laws. If the situation changes, the bank is ready to reconsider the bans, according to Roberts.
“These restrictions are not permanent. Should the risk improve to the point where it’s at an acceptable level, that would be an inflection point for us to review these decisions to make sure we strike the right balance,” he said.
