There is a local industry association, the Australian Digital Currency Commerce Association (its founder is Bit Trade’s Ron Tucker), but it doesn’t yet see fit to list its members, which makes it less-than-useful for consumer protection.
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A bitcoin business in Australia is eyeing banking opportunities overseas following a perceived crackdown from banks in the country.
Australia’s major banks have acted in concert to advise at least 17 bitcoin companies that there accounts would be closed, citing failure to comply with anti-money laundering rules.
But here’s where it gets a little weird: CBA and Westpac are both investing themselves in Bitcoin and Bitcoin-related technologies, with the former not only dealing with the Blockchain internally but also as a contributing member to the R3CEV global Blockchain group; with Westpac it’s even weirder again because the bank once known as the Bank of New South Wales is an investor, through its venture capital arm, in US based Bitcoin exchange Coinbase, Inc. “Just what policies or risks these are have not been specified”, said Tucker, who is the founder of Bit Trade.
In August, an Australian Senate committee said bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were becoming part of the mainstream and should be recognized as a regular currency for goods and services tax purposes.
In a letter addressed to ACCC chairman Rod Sims, Canavan wrote: “The actions by the banks would appear to directly engage competition in the financial services industry as it stands now – and, by effectively nipping in the bud the growth of potential competitors, is likely to substantially reduce the potential for future competition to the detriment of consumers in the future”.
“We don’t have a four-pillars policy to allow banks to guillotine emerging industries they are competing with …”
A spokesperson from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia told CoinDesk that it was unable to comment on individual customers, but added that “Commonwealth Bank consistently serves each customer on a case-by-case basis”.
Westpac told the newspaper one of its concerns was compliance with money-laundering laws.
“Given the risks, there is a need for a clear and settled legal and regulatory framework for digital currencies”, Mr Pearson said. He said the lack of transparency and regulatory oversight raised a number of risks for users and also posed risks for the payments system.
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“The ABA does not support a self-regulation model for providers of digital currencies or participants in the digital currency industry”.
