The Australian Bank, Bendigo Bank blocks “high-risk crypto payments” to protect the customer from investment scams, according to local reports. Bendigo became the fourth major bank in Australia to make take such actions.
A head of fraud operations, Jason Gordon explained that there will be a new rule targeting high-risk instant payments to crypto exchanges in the bank. He also added that there will be “some friction to certain genuine payments”.
The main reason for blocks is to reduce fraudulent payments and to increase protection for their 2.5 million individual customers.
According to the bank’s spokesperson, high-risk transactions are identified using a combination of factors will be blocked, yet specific information remains undisclosed.
In the past, three major banks- Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank (NAB), and Westpac, made similar actions for the crypto payments.
This will lead the citizens of Australia to interact with the offshore exchanges for their crypto transactions, warned Chainalysis’ APAC Policy Head Chengyi Ong.
“[We need to target] all the potential attack vectors and all the potential points of interaction between a victim and a scammer. We have to tackle every single one of those touchpoints,” said Chengyi Ong.
The “best thing” banks can do for consumer protection is to constructively work with exchanges, according to Aaron Lane, a Senior Lecturer at the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub.
He also added, “Debanking as a risk tool should be reserved for individual cases of serious and unacceptable risk, not a general posture towards an entire industry or asset class.”
Australia has been weighing crypto-specific laws for over three years, and Dr Lanes also requested lawmakers to address the reform without any delay.
