Banks are locking millions out of the crypto market with arbitrary bans – this overreach needs to stop, writes Michael Healy

UK investors are embracing crypto, with the country ranking among the highest globally for adoption and awareness of digital assets. Yet instead of supporting this momentum, many UK banks are standing in the way of change – adopting blanket bans on payments to crypto providers that frustrate customers, create unnecessary hurdles and directly undermine the UK’s long-standing ambition to become a global hub for digital assets. It’s a serious overreach that must stop.

New IG research shows that two in five UK crypto investors have had payments blocked or delayed by their bank when trying to buy digital assets. Even by conservative estimates, that’s millions of people being shut out of or hindered from participating in one of the world’s fastest-growing and best performing asset classes. In recent months, one of the UK’s biggest banks introduced a full ban on crypto transactions.

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