Simon Ng On March 14, 2023, the U.K. bank Natwest Group said they will make it harder to use cryptocurrency. They did this because people kept getting scammed out of a lot of money – a total of £329 million each year in the U.K.. People won’t be able to do transactions worth more than £1,000 ($1,215) in one day or £5,000 ($6,077) in one month with cryptocurrencies.
Natwest Takes Action Against Cryptocurrency Scams Targeting Investors
Natwest, a financial company based in Edinburgh, is not allowingers customers to use cryptocurrencies to make payments anymore. This was due to an increasing number of cryptocurrency scams that were happening in the United Kingdom which lost consumers around 399 million dollars on an annual basis. These scams affected mostly men over the age of 35.
Natwest recently announced that people can invest in cryptocurrencies, which can be bought, sold, or traded online. They also mentioned that some bad guys are trying to take advantage of the current cost-of-living crisis, to convince investors to put money into investments with promises of high returns, especially targeting older men.
Stuart Skinner from Natwest’s fraud protection unit said that you should never give out your cryptocurrency wallet password to anyone else. If you don’t remember setting up the wallet or can’t access the money, it is likely a scam. Sadly, there have been an increasing number of scams using cryptocurrency exchanges, so Natwest is taking action to protect their customers.
Natwest, a bank, had imposed limitations on cryptocurrency transactions back in June 2021. Months later, it even blocked payments to Binance due to safety concerns about cryptocurrency scams. Natwest has normally seen cryptocurrencies as “high risk”, and an employee of the bank said before those limits were implemented that they don’t want to have anything to do with them.
What do you think about Natwest not allowing people to use crypto (digital currency) for payments? Give us your opinion on this topic in the comments section below.
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