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Denmark’s Biggest Bank Bans Trades In Cryptocurrencies
Danske Bank is one of the most innovative banks in the Nordic region, but one innovation it isn’t going to be backing is cryptocurrencies. The Danish Bank said this week that it would not allow the cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin on its trading platforms and was strongly recommending that customers refrained from investing in them. Danske Bank is also phasing out the options currently available to investors that allow them to buy financial instruments such as derivatives through cryptocurrencies.
“Overall, we are negative towards cryptocurrencies and we strongly recommend that our customers avoid investing in cryptocurrencies,” the bank said in a report published earlier this week.
It argues that the absence of a central bank to back cryptocurrency means that investors and consumers are not protected in the same way that they are with traditional currencies and investments. It is concerned by the lack of transparency regarding the underlying value of cryptocurrencies and the potential losses that could ensue from such highly volatile instruments. Danske Bank is also worried that cryptocurrencies can be a vehicle for money laundering and financial crime.
In 2013, Danske Bank launched MobilePay, a phone-based payment app which has become the most popular payment solution in Denmark and Finland. As with Swish in Sweden and Vipps in Norway, the app was launched in collaboration with other banks and its aim was to transfer money from friends to businesses as easily as sending a text message.
Initially a free consumer app, 2017 saw fee-paying businesses taking it up in far higher volumes, with 27% of total transfers going through MobilePay. Over 60% of the Danish population now use MobilePay, now a separate company.
Danske Bank is also working with a consortium of other Nordic banks to explore the creation of a pan-Nordic payment system to create the world’s first area for domestic and cross-border payments in multiple currencies. This would help the Nordic banks see off the threat from external fintech.
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