The Dutch Rabobank, one of the largest banks in Netherlands, was reported to block transactions related to bitcoin. Rabobank told that there were technical problems, but for some clients they explained that banks Ethics Commission advised to avoid aiding bitcoin trading.
A documents confirming that Rabobank ruling commission disallowed bitcoin trading was leaked in dutch news site Tweakers.net. The reason behind this decision was named insufficient control over crypto-currency, enabling them to be easily used for trading related to criminal activities.
The documents carried on to label clients involved in bitcoin trading as having a “Higher risk profile”. While the bank did not explain the meaning of such profile, most likely, customers labeled with “higher risk profile” will find it more difficult to obtain credits, or will be granted credits with higher lending interest rate than other clients.
Rabobank claimed that the leaked documents had any connection with blocking transactions related to bitcoin and transaction problems were because of a technical issue. A bank representative explained that these documents did not refer to individual customers, but to the Rabobank reluctance to give credits to entrepreneurs wanting to engage in bitcoin exchanges.
It becomes more common banks freezing accounts, blacklisting and blocking transactions related to bitcoin. The named reasons were usually related to fraud or ethics. Quite often the reasons were even not given. Bitcoin community has pointed out that Rabobank was involved in recent “Libor scandal”. It was a series of frauds connected to the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), the banks were falsely inflating or deflating their rates to gain profit form trades or appear more creditworthy then they are actually.
The Rabobanks structure is different from other banks – its branches have more freedom and they are not obligated to follow instruction of their Ethics Commission, it is up to them to decide. However, if the advice of Commission becomes a standard rule of a Rabobank its branches will be obliged to follow it.