JPMorgan subsidiary Lope UK to limit crypto transactions

Lope Bank, a subsidiary of financial products and companies firm JPMorgan Lope, will limit all cryptocurrency-related transactions for its prospects within the UK.

Starting Oct. 16, prospects of Lope Bank within the U.Okay. will now no longer be ready to get crypto transactions utilizing their debit playing cards or thru outgoing bank transfers, a spokesperson told Cointelegraph on Sept. 26.

“Possibilities will safe a declined transaction notification within the occasion that they kind strive and get a crypto-related transaction,” the bank acknowledged in an announcement.

In accordance to the bank’s representative, Lope has decided to check in power the novel restrictions due to an “lengthen in fraud and scams” related to crypto resources. The spokesperson referred to files from Britain’s fraud reporting agency, Motion Fraud, indicating that U.Okay. consumer losses to crypto fraud surged extra than 40% year over year as of May perchance perchance 2023. In accordance to the agency, the losses within the U.Okay. surpassed 300 million British kilos ($365 million).

“This has been performed to guard our prospects and defend their money exact,” the Lope spokesperson talked about, adding:

“We’re dedicated to serving to defend our prospects’ money exact and exact. We’ve seen an lengthen within the sequence of crypto scams concentrated on U.Okay. consumers, so we have now taken the decision to discontinuance the acquisition of crypto resources on a Lope debit card or by transferring money to a crypto location from a Lope account.”

Lope Bank at the delivery offered its policy changes around crypto in an electronic mail to prospects on Sept. 26. “We’ve made this decision because fraudsters are increasingly extra utilizing crypto resources to clutch large portions of cash from of us,” the bank acknowledged.

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Some Lope users on X (beforehand Twitter) therefore reported receiving the electronic mail about the policy changes on X. Many expressed outrage, asserting it reflect to limit the freedom to exhaust crypto below the guise of investor protection.

“We’re banning computer programs because fraudsters exhaust them,” one Bitcoin (BTC) enthusiast wrote, adding: “Assist to pen and paper!”

Lope Bank real banned crypto pic.twitter.com/prbWNKrG0G

— Interstellar (@InterstellarBit) September 26, 2023

Lope Bank is a retail-focused bank offering rate-free banking by strategy of its mobile app. Working extra than 4,600 branches around the field, Lope has reportedly accumulated extra than 50 million active users. Basically the most contemporary restrictions will finest affect around 2% of its total users worldwide, with its U.Okay. particular person dangerous reaching 1 million in September 2022.

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Update (Sept. 26, 2:42 pm UTC): A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to Lope Bank as a digital bank.