Top UK banks including Lloyds, Barclays are restricting crypto related transfers: report
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Stand With Crypto logged 10,092 complaints about blocked UK crypto transfers, with Lloyds drawing the most complaints even though it has no published policy restricting such transfers. Lloyds, Barclays and NatWest accounted for nearly half of the complaints, and the issue is surfacing ahead of the UK’s 2027 regulatory regime.
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What it means
UK banks curbing crypto payments is not new: NatWest, Santander and others imposed caps and outright blocks from 2021 onward, citing Financial Conduct Authority warnings about fraud and scam losses tied to retail crypto purchases. Stand With Crypto, the advocacy group that tracks such frictions, began logging complaints systematically this year, turning anecdotal reader gripes into a dataset banks and regulators can no longer wave away as isolated.
Customers hit by a block typically cannot complete a transfer to an exchange in real time and must either switch banks, use a different payment rail, or escalate through the Financial Ombudsman Service. Lloyds customers face this despite the bank publishing no rule that would justify a block, meaning decisions appear discretionary rather than policy-driven. Exchanges lose conversions and users lose trust in whichever bank flagged them, with no clear appeal path published.
A bank refusing a transfer without a public policy exposes the gap between stated commitment to open banking and the private risk controls actually applied at the counter. Banks argue they are managing fraud exposure; critics counter that blanket or silent restrictions push legitimate users toward less regulated channels, undermining the consumer-protection goal the blocks claim to serve. Whether this is prudent risk management or arbitrary gatekeeping remains genuinely contested. (per cryptobriefing.com)
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