Portuguese Banks Stop Offering Services to Crypto Exchanges, Citing ‘Risk’ as Rationale
Multiple Portuguese banks have begun closing accounts belonging to crypto exchanges due to “risk management”-related reasons – and the country’s central bank appears to have given the financial institutions its blessing.
Portugal has won itself a reputation as a crypto haven in recent years, due to the fact that it does not impose a capital gains tax on crypto-related earnings. But in the past few months, the government and the financial sector appear to have grown keen to regulate crypto in line with other EU nations.
Per the media outlet Expresso, as well as Jornal de Negocios and Bloomberg, a laundry list of banks – including the heavyweights Banco Comercial Portugues (BCP) and Banco Santander, as well as Caixa Geral de Depósitos, BiG, and Abanca – have closed accounts belonging to at least four domestic crypto exchanges.
The exchanges are all registered with the central Bank of Portugal, which polices domestic crypto trading platforms. The identity of three of the exchanges was revealed as Criptoloja, Mind The Coin, and Luso Digital Assets, with a fourth asking for anonymity in the media.
The Bank of Portugal Governor, Mário Centeno, was quoted as stating that financial institutions had the power to do as they pleased, but added that he was “monitoring the matter.”
The central bank was further quoted as explaining:
“The decision to open or continue to offer bank account services depends in such cases on the risk management policies that each banking institution puts into place.”
The Bank of Portugal’s supervision of exchanges comprises ensuring that platforms fight money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Additional regulation for the crypto sector is still yet to be developed.
BCP told Bloomberg that its duty was
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