Indias ICICI Bank prevents clients from making crypto investments abroad

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ICICI Bank, one of the largest private lenders in India, recently stepped up its crackdown on cryptocurrency trading, asking customers not to use foreign remittances to invest in digital assets.

According to a July 9 report in The Economic Times, the bank amended the “Retail Fund Rebate Request” form to include a statement that “Rebates are NOT intended for investment. purchase of bitcoins / cryptocurrencies / virtual currencies (like ethereum, ripple). [XRP], litecoin, dash, peercoin, dogecoin, primecoin, chinacoin, ven, bitcoin or any other virtual currency / cryptocurrency / bitcoin). ”

Users who intend to transfer money overseas under the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) liberalized transfer program must now sign this statement, which also deters clients from investing in “Mutual fund / stock units or any other capital instrument of a company dealing in bitcoin.” / cryptocurrency / virtual currencies.

Related: Bitcoin News Roundup For July 9, 2021

The amended form also requests a statement that the source of the funds to be remitted is not the redemption of crypto investments. The change comes weeks after major Indian lenders suspended banking services to local crypto exchanges and effectively closed foreign markets to traders.

The RBI said on May 31 that lenders cannot invoke its now invalid ban on crypto banking services, imposed in April 2018, to block services to crypto exchanges and traders. Despite this, several lenders have shut down net banking services to traders involved in crypto transactions.

Amid all this, the regulatory picture remains uncertain. According to CNBC TV 18, the government will likely introduce the Cryptocurrency and Official Digital Currency Regulation Bill, 2021 to Parliament during the monsoon session that begins on July 19.

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