Italian bank threatens to close accounts of clients who buy crypto
One step forward for a decentralized finance world.
The story
Unicredit, a corporate investment banking company headquartered in Milan, Italy is threatening to close the bank accounts of clients who buy cryptocurrencies.
A Twitter user named @Pasqualini3Sara showed a screenshot of a conversation of what seems to the Unicredit customer support. The customer has addressed that she couldn’t send money to cryptocurrency exchanges like FTX or Crypto.com to which she was reaching out for assistance.
Take a look.
The customer support advised her against the action because it’s against Unicredit’s policy, which she asked where the policy was written. The customer support responded by saying,
“it’s now written in the contract, it’s just a policy we have”.
The customer service also told her that anyone who tries to send money to any cryptocurrency exchange will be reported and their account will be at risk of termination.
History follows
This is not the first time Unicredit has received backlash.
Over 2 years ago, the multinational bank revealed that a data breach exposed 3 million customer records revealing crucial demographical information like names, telephone numbers, email addresses, and cities where clients were registered. Read more here.
In 2019, Unicredit’s German-headquartered subsidiary, UniCredit Bank AG agreed to plead guilty for illegally processing transactions in violation of Iranian sanctions.
Unicredit Bank AG has defrauded the United States by processing hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions through the U.S. financial system on behalf of an entity designated as a weapons of mass destruction proliferator and other Iranian entities subject to U.S. economic sanctions.
Read more here.
What can we learn
As the tweet went trending, the official Unicredit account tweeted a statement confirming that their policies forbid customers to send money to any cryptocurrency exchange.
This statement has attracted hundreds of other people to express their opinions on the matter.
This event has shown the importance of decentralization and the power of cryptocurrencies. Without decentralization, modern banks will keep doing whatever they want with your money and your financial accounts anytime and anywhere, leaving you to dust and no control.
This is one of the main reasons Bitcoin was created and why the world is pushing for a decentralized finance world.
Of course, trust is a big part. It has come to show that we can’t trust our money on modern banks and if you can’t trust Unicredit for cryptocurrency transactions, then we’re on the right path.
Great bank alternatives
1. Revolut—used by 15 million users
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2. N26—great online banking for all-around use
3. Or just change to any bank locally that is not Unicredit