Rumor has it that Chinese banks are freezing client accounts that have a history of buying and selling cryptocurrencies. According to a Chinatimes report on June 13, banks in China have clarified that they are not shutting down any legit fiat to crypto accounts.
Major banks reply
According to the report, China Merchants Bank, Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank and industrial and Commercial Bank of China all responded that:
"As long as the operation is legal, the channel is legal, the virtual currency source is legal and if the web page also supports the bank card service, the bank will not actively freeze the user's funds. Unless there is any involvement of money laundering and fraud and other illegal related cases."
More investigation
The investigation found out that over the counter transactions that support Alipay, WeChat and major banks' bank card accounts show no risk warning reminder when operating transactions.
Alipay management fund security department personnel commented that:
"As long as there is Alipay payment page, and must be legal operation, it will not involve funds freeze, account freeze and other issues."
Although no legal crypto accounts would shut down, industry insiders still reminded people to use or open a separate account for cryptocurrency trading. They added that:
"It's better not to use bank cards with important uses to purchase cryptocurrencies, such as deduction cards and wage cards related to mortgage and car loans.”
As Cointelegraph reported last year, Alipay banned transactions related to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In September 2017, Chinese regulators placed a ban on local cryptocurrency exchanges, and sought to crack down on all domestic cryptocurrency trading. However, last month Binance has reportedly registered a new domain registered with the Chinese government.