09.02.2018 Views

news

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

Publication Date<br />

Headline<br />

Outlet<br />

URL<br />

Snippet<br />

04-Feb-2018<br />

Cryptocurrency CRACKDOWN: UK’s biggest bank BANS credit card owners from buying<br />

bitcoin<br />

EXPRESS (Online)<br />

Click to open<br />

BRITAIN’S biggest bank has banned customers from using credit cards to buy bitcoin after<br />

the value of the cryptocurrency halved in less than two months.<br />

Lloyds Banking Group will tell its nine million credit card customers on Monday that any<br />

attempts to buy bitcoin will be blocked.<br />

It is thought hundreds of thousands of people invested in bitcoin last year as the digital<br />

currency’s value soared in the final months of 2017.<br />

Bitcoin value reached £14,000 in December, before rapidly falling to less than £6,000 in<br />

recent days.<br />

Lloyds fears it could be forced to pay off unpaid debts if the price of the digital currency<br />

continues to fall.<br />

From Monday, credit card customers of Lloyds, which includes Halifax, Bank of Scotland<br />

and MBNA, will be blocked from purchasing the cryptocurrency online via a blacklist which<br />

will flag up sellers.<br />

Other British banks are expected to follow suit over the coming weeks after several of the<br />

biggest US banks including JP Morgan, Bank of America and Citigroup all confirmed plans<br />

to block attempts to buy digital currencies.<br />

A spokesman for Lloyds said the decision was made to "protect customers" in what is<br />

thought to be a pre-emptive move to reduce the risks that come with the volatile<br />

cryptocurrency.<br />

The <strong>news</strong> comes amid growing international concerns about how the increasingly popular<br />

cryptocurrencies are being used, with fears some people are using them to launder money.<br />

Theresa May has previously earned about the dangers of cryptocurrencies and said it is<br />

something that should be looked at “very seriously”.<br />

She said: “Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, we should be looking at these very seriously,<br />

precisely because of the way that they can be used, particularly by criminals.”<br />

Cryptocurrency technology allows users to make payments and store money on the internet<br />

without needing to use their name or a bank.<br />

Transactions can be carried out between peers from “cryptocurrency wallets”. These are<br />

then recorded on the blockchain.<br />

It works by matching up public codes that relate back to user-held private passwords -<br />

known as keys - which are used instead of names.<br />

Individual units are created through a process called mining, which involves using a<br />

complicated computer program to solve online maths problems or algorithms which<br />

generate coins when answered correctly.<br />

Users can also buy the currencies from brokers, then store and spend them using<br />

cryptographic wallets.

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!