Indian Banks Force Customers to Sign Consent Forms Banning the Buying and Selling of Bitcoin and Cryptoassets

In another piece of shocking news to come out from India, it is being reported that some of the nation’s private banking institutions are “explicitly prohibiting their customers from using their services for altcoin related transactions”.

To be more specific, a number of HDFC bank users have recently been complaining online that they have been forced to sign contracts that prohibit them from indulging in any activities related to the buying/selling of digital assets. According to Twitter user Crypto India YT, many banks are threatening customers to sign the aforementioned consent form failing which they risk account closure (as well as losing their hard earned savings).

An excerpt from the form reads:

“I/We authorize the bank to close the above account without any further notice if it is observed in future that transactions have been carried out for Bitcoin/ virtual currencies.”

More on the Matter

As reported by BitcoinExchangeGuide earlier, other established financial institutions such as Kotak, Digibank too have been caught forcing their clientele to sign “borderline illegal” paperwork so as to prevent them from using crypto. To be even more specific, a Kotak bank user was recently hit with a warning that explicitly stated that if he were to continue indulging in crypto-related activities, his account would be shut down within a period of thirty days.

“We have observed few transactions in your account with brokers / traders, dealing in virtual currencies. Since these types of transactions are not permitted in India, we are constrained to place a credit freeze in your account. Further as per the extant guidelines, we are required to exit such relationships where transactions with brokers / traders, dealing in virtual currencies are observed.”

Final Take

Despite all of these shady bans being imposed by Indian banks on their customers, crypto-users have continued to find novel means of bypassing current restrictions by making use of platforms such as WazirX that allow enthusiasts to buy/sell crypto without being flagged.

On the matter, WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty was recently quoted as saying:

“Majority of the people understand not to enter such terms in the remarks. So simply avoiding entering anything related to crypto in the payment remarks is more than enough to avoid any problems from banks. There’s no other way for banks to know if a P2P transaction was done to transact in crypto.”