Santander Joins Barclays in a Bank Blockade against Coinbase in the UK?

2019-8-15 18:15

Coinspeaker
Santander Joins Barclays in a Bank Blockade against Coinbase in the UK?

Santander, a major Spanish bank, is allegedly preventing UK customers from depositing their fiat funds to Coinbase. An unverified Reddit posting on August 14 claimed to have got that information via a phone call from a Santander representative. According to the Reddit user, that decision was made due to increased fraud related to the exchange.

Santander Targets Coinbase not All Crypto

The same unverified source claimed that they put in a complaint with the financial institution’s complaints unit. It was reportedly confirmed that clients should shift to other banks if they wished to transact with Coinbase.

The user went further to state that the complaints unit of the bank said that the latest restriction was likely as a result of Santander’s attempts to get rid of increasing Coinbase-related fraud.

So far, the post has sparked hundreds of comments with more than three Redditors saying otherwise. According to these users, they have not encountered any limitations while transacting with Santander using their Coinbase accounts. At least one of these respondents stated that they are from the US while the other two chose to remain anonymous.

Another commentator on that post said that Santander has supposedly blocked withdrawals from BitStamp in Spain and Portugal. The original poster, in a follow-up comment, said that these measures could be temporary until Coinbase enhances its fraud prevention infrastructure. He also informed that Santander had stated that:

“This was isolated to Coinbase and not cryptocurrency in general.”

Santander Responds

Responding to these allegations, a Santander spokeswoman said that the blocking was ‘not the case’ and explained:

“We do not block payments to legitimate companies; however in certain circumstances, we will refer payments for additional security checks, where we believe there may be a higher risk of fraud.”

According to that official statement, Santander customers face delays whenever they are withdrawing or depositing funds in fiat on Coinbase. The most affected individuals are those transacting large amounts. On the other hand, individual clients under investigation may face extensive scrutiny over their transactions.

Barclays Breaks Ties with Coinbase: Allegedly

The noticeable actions of Santander in the United Kingdom follow other interesting reports about a British banking giant. As we published earlier, Barclays has cut its ties with Coinbase. The Barclays-Coinbase partnership allowed British clients to use Coinbase extensively. The end of this partnership could end Coinbase users’ access to the UK “Faster Payments Scheme” (FPS).

Barclays used to provide Coinbase users with access to GBP exchange starting from March 2018. News of the broken ties remains unconfirmed officially. It is not also verified if Coinbase will continue its access to the UK market via Clearbank.