UK’s Third Largest Bank, NatWest, Limits Crypto Deposits to £1,000 Daily

NatWest, one of the UK’s most popular financial institutions, has recently imposed restrictions on its customers’ crypto purchases.

According to a Bloomberg report, the bank has implemented a daily limit of £1,000 ($1,215) or £5,000 ($6,090) every 30 days on its customers’ crypto purchases to reduce their exposure to volatile assets.

NatWest stated that the restrictions would prevent its customers from losing “life-changing sums of money” on crypto investments and scams.

The bank revealed that fraudsters use false promises of high returns to lure investors and take advantage of their lack of understanding of crypto and its unpredictability.

This has led to an increase in the number of scams running through crypto exchanges, prompting the bank to implement the restrictions as part of its efforts to protect its customers.

Stuart Skinner, NatWest’s head of fraud protection, acknowledged that criminals play on people’s lack of knowledge about crypto to encourage them to transfer money to exchanges set up in the customer’s name by the criminal or victim under duress.

In response to this, NatWest imposed similar restrictions on its customers in June 2021, and it blocked transfers to several crypto firms that posed fraud-related harm to its users.

It is worth noting that NatWest is not the only bank that has recently imposed restrictions on customers. HSBC recently banned users from purchasing cryptocurrencies using their credit cards, citing possible risks, while Nationwide bank imposed a daily limit of £5,000 ($6,090) on all digital asset debit-card purchases.