(Bloomberg) -- Canada's biggest banks still allow customers to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with debit and credit cards, even as some U.S. lenders move to block such transactions.
Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canada's largest lender by assets, permits such purchases using a TD credit or debit card as long as the merchant is authorized to accept Visa, Mastercard, Interac or Visa debit and the transaction isn't determined to be fraudulent, Julie Bellissimo, a spokeswoman, said Monday in a statement.
Royal Bank of Canada, the No. 2 lender, said it allows credit cards to be used for transactions involving cryptocurrency “in limited circumstances.”
“We recognize that regulatory, risk and other external environmental factors relating to cryptocurrency continues to evolve,” RBC spokesman AJ Goodman said in a statement. “As such, we continue to review our policies to consider how we can best support clients.”
In the U.S., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. have in the past four days halted purchases of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on their credit cards. Canadian banks say they're watching carefully -- especially with increasing regulatory scrutiny and the plunge in Bitcoin prices, which fell below $7,300 Monday to its lowest since mid-November.
“There is nothing that would generally block a transaction, however we are carefully reviewing our policy,” Rick Roth, a Bank of Nova Scotia spokesman, said in an emailed statement.
National Bank of Canada, the country's sixth-largest lender, said it allows cryptocurrency transactions. Bank of Montreal and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce didn't immediately provide comment on their cryptocurrency policies.
--With assistance from Jenny Surane
To contact the reporter on this story: Doug Alexander in Toronto at dalexander3@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, David Scanlan at dscanlan@bloomberg.net, Steve Dickson, Heather Perlberg
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