For the past several months, numerous central banks and governments have consistently published consumer alerts and investor advisories urging citizens to be cautious before they enter into the realm of peer-to-peer decentralized virtual currencies. These guidances have become quite common and have regurgitated the same contents over and over again.
This week, the Dutch National Bank (DNB) has issued a different kind of warning and this time directed towards the financial institutions and the banking and payments industry in the Netherlands. The central bank noted that bitcoin could threaten the stability of banks and urged them to be aware of businesses affiliated with bitcoin and to understand the severity of anonymity and anti-money laundering laws.
So far, the bitcoin market in the Netherlands hasn’t been touched and the government and law enforcement agencies have been relatively lax. The bitcoin community has pretty much viewed the Netherlands as a safe haven for cryptocurrency operations.
“In 2014, DNB will investigate whether banks and payment institutions are actively involved with new payment products such as virtual currencies and (it) will assess the degree to which these institutions control/manage their integrity risks. The control should include effective measures with respect to client acceptance and the monitoring of new innovative suppliers.”
The Dutch central bank’s latest measure could serve another blow to the bitcoin industry in Europe as more governments and banking authorities are taking regulatory action against the digital currency.
Mark Buitenhek, ING Groep NV (INGA)’s global head of transaction services, noted at a banking conference that banks are following the trends of their clients and consumers have been expressing that they want change and bitcoin could bet.
“We are very expressly looking at what it is, what it can do and, mostly, what the message behind it is,” Buitenhek said at a recent conference. “And that tells us: Banks, take action.”
