JPMorgan’s British retail bank Chase announced on Tuesday that the bank will halt cryptocurrency transactions starting on October 16 due to a rise in fraud and scams.
“We’ve seen an increase in the number of crypto scams targeting UK consumers, so we have taken the decision to prevent the purchase of crypto assets on a Chase debit card or by transferring money to a crypto site from a Chase account,” a spokesperson for the bank said.
In response to ongoing worries about the use of cryptocurrency by criminals in online scams, Chase has become the latest lender in the UK to limit consumers’ access to it.
In an effort to safeguard customers from “crypto-criminals,” NatWest introduced additional restrictions on the daily and monthly amounts that customers can send to cryptocurrency exchanges in March.
As part of measures to safeguard clients against scams, Spain’s Santander announced last year that it would prevent UK customers from transmitting real-time payments to cryptocurrency exchanges.
Since the launch of the mobile app-based service in Britain two years ago, JPMorgan has attracted more than 1.6 million clients to its Chase retail bank. The company aims to gradually roll out the consumer bank in additional international countries.
