Lloyds Banking Group Plc said yesterday it would ban its credit card customers from buying cryptocurrencies, following the lead of US banking giants JP Morgan Chase & Co and Citigroup. — Reuters pic

LONDON, Feb 5 — Banks in the United Kingdom and the United States have banned the use of credit cards to buy bitcoin and other “cryptocurrencies”, fearing a plunge in their value will leave customers unable to repay their debts.

Lloyds Banking Group Plc, the UK’s biggest lender, said yesterday it would ban its credit card customers from buying cryptocurrencies, following the lead of US banking giants JP Morgan Chase & Co and Citigroup.

The move is aimed at protecting customers from running up huge debts from buying virtual currencies on credit, if their values were to plummet, a Lloyds spokeswoman said.

Concerns have arisen among credit card providers because their customers have increasingly been using credit cards to fund accounts on online exchanges, which are then used to purchase the digital currencies.

Last week, Mastercard Inc, the world’s second biggest payments network, said customers buying cryptocurrencies with credit cards fuelled a 1 percentage point increase in overseas transaction volumes in the fourth quarter.

At that time bitcoin was staging a spectacular rise in value, reaching a peak of US$19,187 (RM74,818) on Dec 16 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange.

But the biggest and best-known cryptocurrency has since fallen dramatically and today was down by 6 per cent to US$7,700 at 1100 GMT on Bitstamp, extending losses from Friday amid worries of a global regulatory clampdown.

A spokeswoman for Chase bank said it is not currently processing credit card purchases of cryptocurrencies because of the volatility and risk involved, while a Citi spokeswoman confirmed a similar ban, but did not give a reason.

The bans extends only to credit card purchases, with debit card users still able to buy cryptocurrencies.

“Across Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland, Halifax and MBNA, we do not accept credit card transactions involving the purchase of cryptocurrencies,” the Lloyds spokeswoman said in an email.

Lloyds did not say how it planned to enforce the ban, although the Telegraph newspaper reported yesterday that its credit card customers will be blocked from buying bitcoin online through a “blacklist” that will flag sellers.

A spokeswoman from the Royal Bank of Scotland declined to comment on the bank’s policy.

Other leading British lenders including Barclays, and HSBC did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether they permit credit card purchases of crypto currencies or had any plans to change their policies.

Concerns about the use of bitcoin and other such currencies extend beyond the use of credit cards for borrowing.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has said the UK should take a serious look at digital currencies such as bitcoin because of the way they can be used by criminals. — Reuters