Haberler

The British Association UK Finance, which includes about three hundred companies ranging from network banks to investment funds and fintech projects, has decided to remove the Coinbase crypto exchange from its lists. The notification was sent after an internal audit, where the board re-assessed the requirements for the participants. According to Bloomberg, the council considered that independent crypto platforms do not meet the basic criteria of membership. Coinbase may try to challenge this decision, but the incident itself has already sparked a wave of discussions about the future of contacts between classic banks and crypto structures.

Such a step was expected, but it vividly demonstrates the growing conflict between traditional finance and the digital asset market. Experts regard UK Finance's actions as a desire to set clear boundaries, especially against the background of the growing political weight of the crypto industry and significant lobbying in the United States and Europe. Long-standing tensions have also been affected: crypto companies have often complained that British banks block transfers of fiat money to exchanges or freeze accounts, explaining this as a fight against money laundering. Banks, in turn, are wary of the crypt and are in no hurry to integrate it into their systems.

A separate dispute is developing around stablecoins and their profitability. Traditional clearing banks indicate that dollar tokens with interest actually replace deposits, but they are not subject to regulation. This, in their opinion, can pull capital from ordinary savings accounts. In the United States, Coinbase is already in conflict with the banking lobby, including the American Bankers Association, over the CLARITY bill, which proposes to limit payments from stablecoin issuers. Banks want to protect the deposit base, and the exchange and its supporters want to preserve income distribution. This struggle is directly related to the UK Finance decision, showing the depth of the discrepancies.

The online reaction to the exclusion was mixed. Some saw this as a defensive move by banks, while others saw it as an attempt to prevent the exchange from developing British rules for cryptocurrencies. At the same time, experts from the traditional sector support the board, emphasizing that autonomous exchanges operate with different risks, business models and norms than banks. It is really difficult to combine them in one association, as this dilutes the standards of banking regulation.