TD Bank in Canada also suspends purchases of crypto with credit card

In what has apparently become a global trend on the part of well-known banks, the Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD), one of the largest banks in North America, announced on Friday, February 23, by email to its customers, which is prohibiting the purchase of cryptocurrencies with credit cards, as published by the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail. These operations were taking place with complete fluidity until very recently.

A representative of TD Bank, the first major Canadian bank to issue such a ban, said the bank regularly assesses its policies and security measures "to serve and protect our customers, as well as the bank."

In this way, the aforementioned financial institution joins the global movement of banks that prohibit the use of credit cards for the purchase of cryptocurrencies.Those who started with this strong restriction were the emblematic JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup on February 3, followed by the Lloyds Banking Group, the largest bank in the United Kingdom, on February 5.

Then Virgin Money would come in Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom on February 6. More recently, Citibank India continued with the prohibition of credit and debit cards for purchases of cryptocurrencies.

According to The Globe and Mail last Friday, and still against the current, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) clarified that it allows the use of both credit and debit cards for transactions involving cryptocurrencies in limited circumstances, without to stop warning its clients about the risks derived from high volatility of the sector and that "could expose them substantially to levels of debt higher than what they can pay."

"We recognize that regulation, risk and other external environmental factors related to cryptocurrency continue to evolve," an RBC spokesperson said in a statement sent by email.

The value of Bitcoin soared last year, reaching more than C $ 20,000 (Canadian dollars) per Bitcoin. Since then, the value of the cryptocurrency has experienced a considerable decline, trading at around C $ 13,000 (approximately US $ 10,286), reaching a low of C $ 11,760 last week, although it is already showing signs of recovery.