Following in the footsteps of several major banks globally, the Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD), one of the largest banks in North America, announced in an email statement to customers on Friday, Feb. 23, that it is banning the purchase of cryptocurrency with credit cards, local journal The Globe and Mail reports.
A representative of TD, the first major Canadian bank to enact such a ban, said that the bank regularly evaluates its policies and security measures “in order to serve and protect our customers, as well as the bank.”
TD’s move is part of a larger global trend of banks banning customers from credit card purchases of cryptocurrency. The wave of bans was initiated by US giants J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup on Feb. 3, and followed by the largest bank in the UK, Lloyds Banking Group, Feb. 5, and Virgin Money in Australia, South Africa, and the UK on Feb. 6. Last week, Citibank India went ahead with banning both credit and debit cards for crypto purchases.
According to The Globe and Mail on Feb. 23, the Royal Bank of Canada made of point of stating that it does allow both debit and credit card purchases of cryptocurrency, but it warns its customers about high volatility risks which "could expose them to substantially higher debt levels than they are able to repay.”
In a contrasting move for the local industry, on Feb. 13, a Canadian stock exchange announced that it will soon launch its own Blockchain-based securities clearing and settlement platform that help companies raise funds via fully regulated security tokens issued by the exchange.