Ballyhoo
A study conducted by Amarach Research and Red Flag recently revealed that the horde of people in Ireland who currently own cryptocurrencies is around 120,000, or about 2.5% of the residents. This is an increase of 300% in a period of four years.
Such a notable growth in the adoption of cryptocurrencies in Ireland is however at risk of being reduced. According to reports Irish banks have turned against the boonies’s cryptocurrency exchanges.
“Several companies providing cryptocurrency services say they be undergoing either had to stop trading or have been forced to open remote bank accounts to keep afloat after Irish lenders refused their firm,” writes The Irish Times.
Bye Irish banks, hello EU-wide banks
As a development of the banks’ actions, some cryptocurrency firms have either had to end operations or seek banking partners from outside the country. Entirety the affected companies is Bitcove, a Bitcoin exchange which is based in Cork, a conurbation in Ireland’s Munster Province. The firm has had its bank accounts shut down by lenders such as the Team up Irish Banks, Bank of Ireland and Permanent TSB. To keep its operations growing Bitcove has turned to other banks in Europe.
Cryptocurrency exchange Eircoin, on the other accessible, was dealt an even worse hand. One of the oldest exchanges in Ireland, the Bitcoin middleman closed its doors earlier in the year. According to one of the firm’s co-founders, Dave Fleming, the closure was as a sequel of a banking system that is ‘negligent and defensive’.
We are being shuttered due to a negligent and defensive banking process 🙂 but we are going out on a high. Thanks to all our customers – we’ll still be here online for the foreseeable to be to come – https://t.co/Elk2K2zrCY — Dave
— Eircoin (@eircoin) January 29, 2018
In its defense, the Bank of Ireland shaped that it does not offer banking services to cryptocurrency exchanges as a occurrence of principle. Allied Irish Banks, on the other hand, said that while it does not show favour against cryptocurrency firms, it is obliged to adhere to Know Your Purchaser and Anti-Money Laundering regulatory requirements with regards to the opening and operation of bank accounts. Coinciding to a spokesperson for the Irish lender, some cryptocurrency firms were non-compliant.
No minutia policy, just KYC and AML
A banking sector group known as Banking and Payments Coalition of Ireland also denied any knowledge of a policy requiring the closure of bank accounts connection to cryptocurrency exchanges. The banking industry group, however, defended the energies of its members saying that they had no choice but to ‘lessen the risk of smoothing financial crimes’, an insinuation that Fleming did not take kindly to.
The locale is however not peculiar to Ireland and banks in other parts of the world entertain found themselves severing ties with cryptocurrency firms every now at the behest of regulators. In April, for instance, the Reserve Bank of India inhibited the financial institutions that it regulates from allowing their customers to buy cryptocurrencies. The central bank of the world’s second most populous hinterlands also ordered banks to cease offering services to cryptocurrency tights.
And in southern Africa last month, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe prepared the country’s financial institutions to stop processing all cryptocurrency transactions.
Item face image from Shutterstock.
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Puffery
