Visa Says You Can Buy Almost Anything, Except Crypto Currencies

 The news this week is that several banks in the USA and the UK have banned the use of credit cards to purchase crypto currencies (CC's). The stated reasons are impossible to believe - like trying to curtail money laundering, gambling, and protecting the retail investor from excessive risk. Interestingly, the banks will allow debit card purchases, making it clear that the only risks being protected are their own.

With a credit card you can gamble at a casino, buy guns, drugs, alcohol, pornography, everything and anything you desire, but some banks and credit card companies want to prohibit you from using their facilities to purchase crypto currencies? There must be some believable reasons, and they are NOT the reasons stated.

One thing that banks are afraid of is how difficult it would be to confiscate CC holdings when the credit card holder defaults on payment. It would be much more difficult than re-possessing a house or a car. A crypto wallet's private keys can be put on a memory stick or a piece of paper and easily removed from the country, with little or no trace of its whereabouts. There can be a high value in some crypto wallets, and the credit card debt may never be crypto , leading to a declaration of bankruptcy and a significant loss for the bank. The wallet still contains the crypto currency, and the owner can later access the private keys and use a local CC Exchange in a foreign country to convert and pocket the money. A nefarious scenario indeed.

We are certainly not advocating this kind of unlawful behavior, but the banks are aware of the possibility and some of them want to shut it down. This can't happen with debit cards as the banks are never out-of-pocket - the money comes out of your account immediately, and only if there is enough of your money there to start with. We struggle to find any honesty in the bank's story about curtailing gambling and risk taking. It's interesting that Canadian banks are not jumping on this bandwagon, perhaps realizing that the stated reasons for doing so are bogus. The fallout from these actions is that investors and consumers are now aware that credit card companies and banks really do have the ability to restrict what you can purchase with their credit card. This is not how they advertise their cards, and it is likely a surprise to most users, who are quite used to deciding for themselves what they will purchase, especially from CC Exchanges and all the other merchants who have established Merchant Agreements with these banks. The Exchanges have done nothing wrong - neither have you - but fear and greed in the banking industry is causing strange things to happen. This further illustrates the degree to which the banking industry feels threatened by Crypto Currencies.