LONDON, March 2 (Reuters) - Britain's Nationwide Building Society has restricted customers' ability to buy cryptocurrency, the lender said in an email to its members on Thursday.
Nationwide said it will not allow credit card payments to cryptocurrency exchanges and will limit adult checking accounts to 5,000 pounds ($5,995) of purchases per day.
The building society said the move was in response to regulatory concerns about the risks of buying digital currencies.
Cryptocurrency prices rose in 2020 and 2021 before falling sharply last year as rising interest rates led investors to dump riskier assets. A series of crypto crashes, including the FTX exchange, left investors with heavy losses, resulting in calls to regular the sector.
Nationwide's announcement follows similar moves by other UK banks. In November, as part of measures to protect customers from scams, Santander (SAN.MC) it introduced limits on the amount customers could transfer to cryptocurrency exchanges and said it would soon block UK customers from sending real-time payments to cryptocurrency exchanges.
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Natwest Group (NWG.L) introduced restrictions in 2021.
Nationwide's website says the bank will continue to restrict payments made to cryptocurrency exchange Binance, citing "similar actions by other providers, media coverage, and regulatory uncertainty."
The US Department of Justice is investigating Binance for suspected money laundering and sanctions violations, Reuters has previously reported. Binance has said that she regularly works with regulatory agencies to address any questions they may have.
($1 = 0.8340 pounds)
Edited by Sinead Cruise and David Goodman
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