Virgin Money, a financial services company present in Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, has followed several US and British banks by banning credit card purchases of cryptocurrencies.
A spokesperson for Virgin Money told BBC that,
“Following a review of our policies, I can confirm customers will no longer be able to use their Virgin Money credit card to purchase crypto-currencies.”
Lloyds Banking Group announced their credit card crypto ban on Feb. 5, after J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup had all banned their customers on Feb. 3 from purchasing digital currency with credit cards. Customers at these banks can still purchase cryptocurrency with their debit cards.
When asked about a future credit card crypto ban at Barclays, a spokesperson for the bank told BBC that customers can currently use both credit and debit cards for cryptocurrency purchases:
“We take precautions to assess affordability before extending credit, flag and prevent any suspicious transactions and also closely monitor credit risk.”
The string of credit card bans by large financial institutions comes after the crypto markets have experienced heavy losses this week, with Bitcoin (BTC) dropping below $7000 for the first time since December. The traditional markets saw a similar slump yesterday, with the Dow Jones Industrial average down over 1,100 points and the S&P 500 Index losing its January gain.
Bitcoin is hovering around $7,026.72 by press time, down about 4.14 percent over a 24-hour period.