NatWest now only allows users to move £1,000 per day to the crypto industry

Updated: 15 March 2023

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As the UK continues its attempts to regulate the crypto industry, some companies have taken their own steps to try and prevent scams and fraud in the emerging digital assets sector. NatWest is the most recent example of this, as the bank imposed new limits to how much money its customers can send to digital currency exchanges. According to the firm, users will now be limited to sending £1,000 per day, with a limit of £5,000 ($6,088) in a 30-day period.

According to the bank, daily and monthly limits are necessary in order to protect consumers from online criminals.

NatWest puts a limit of £1,000 per day or £5,000 every 30 days on the amount customers can transfer into crypto exchanges , in a bid to stop them “losing life changing sums of money," per Bloomberg.

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) March 14, 2023

NatWest introduced its new limitations this Tuesday

NatWest has already implemented its new limitations yesterday, March 14th. The decision came in light of multiple warnings that regulators from all over the world have issued against crypto-related scams and fraud. The warnings have been coming in for years now, but the advantages of the crypto industry and its underlying technology are too big for the industry to be banned. From the bank’s point of view, this only leaves severe limitations such as this.

The amount of money taken by scammers, hackers, and other online criminals is growing with each new year. NatWest commented that consumers from the UK have lost £329 million to crypto crimes in 2022 alone. The financial and energy crisis that has struck the world in the aftermath of the pandemic and recent geo-political tensions has not avoided the United Kingdom. The cost of living is constantly rising, and the country’s citizens are ready to jump on any opportunity that could grant them some elevated profits.

This makes them an easy target for scammers who seek to lure investors with the promise of high returns. In reality, they just rob people of their money and disappear, leaving the investors in an even worse situation.

NatWest’s head of fraud protection, Stuart Skinner, commented on the matter, saying

We have seen an increase in the number of scams using cryptocurrency exchanges and we are acting to protect our customers.

The UK banks are growing more concerned with crypto fraud

Nearly two years ago, in June 2021, NatWest also introduced daily caps on what crypto users could transfer to digital asset exchanges. This even included Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume. At the time, the bank introduced limitations that varied in size, each specific to each of the available platforms. The bank, which is one of the largest lenders in Britain, pointed out its concerns regarding investment scams and fraud back then, as well.

Then, in November 2022, Santander also said that something must be done, deciding to introduce a block that would prevent customers from sending real-time payments to cryptocurrency platforms. The bank said that the block would come into effect at some point in 2023, without specifying when exactly such measures might be implemented.

Naturally, the crypto industry is less than pleased with the banks’ decisions, pointing out that it is not up to them to decide what users will do with their money. If anything, the community would prefer to see the banks educate users in order to prepare them for scams, rather than limit their ability to use their own money in any way they want. Others have pointed out that this type of centralization is exactly why people are turning to crypto more than ever.