Indian banks prohibiting banking services to Crypto community is illegal

avatar

On March 4 2020, Supreme Court of India lifted the unconstitutional RBI Crypto ban. Despite of it, some banks are still denying services to crypto users by freezing their bank accounts or rejecting their credit or Debit Card payment, or blocking internacional wire transfer payments.

So Unocoin cryptoexchange co-founder Harish BV filed a RTI in April to question RBI. RBI recently sent a reply to this:

Screenshot_20200602222640.jpg

In this RTI, a very straight forward question was put to RBI:

Does RBI prohibited any banks from providing the bank accounts to crypto exchanges or crypto traders ?

To this RBI replied:

As on date no such prohibition exist.

Screenshot_20200602222933__01.jpg

This makes it crystal clear that in the absence of any regulatory guideline, the denial of services to crypto users by any bank is without any statutory backing and in violation of their rights to access banking services.

So if you are facing such discrimination from your bank, what are the remedies in front of you?

Well, Crypto Kanoon co-founder Mohammed Danish write about three possible solutions to this in this Coin Telegraph article:

Indian Banks Still Cryptophobic Despite No Banking Prohibition

You can also take his help on on his portal Crypto Complaints

All the best!



0
0
0.000
4 comments
avatar

Nice to see an update about the Indian markets here :)

I got notices from my bank (wont name it though), that they will shut down my account if I am found dealing in cryptos. I told them to go ahead and do what they want.

Now here's a fun fact: I didnt even use that bank account to buy cryptos. I have another bank account which I use. My question was, how did they even come to know when I never used their bank to transact in cryptos?

It was a serious breach of privacy and I escalated the topic. No questions were asked after that. And they stopped bothering me.

0
0
0.000
avatar

This is strange. Perhaps it's possible that some private banks share database for accounts found to be involved in suspicious or malicious activities or something to safeguard themselves ...the way they used to share creditors' database before the introduction of CIBIL. I really don't know!

But good to know that your tactivs worked and they stopped bothering you

0
0
0.000
avatar

It takes a while for old established organizations to recognize and accept new methods and concepts. Financial institutions may also be a little afraid that crypto could put them out of business.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Cryptos and blockchain technology are designed that way! Centralized financial institution will go out of business one day. They ain't needed!

0
0
0.000