Two Chilean banks were ordered by the Chilean court to re-open the accounts of Buda, one of the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.
According to a report by Bloomberg, the anti-monopoly court asked Banco del Estado de Chile and Itau Corpbanca to re-open the accounts to prevent the country from looking like it was on a ban on cryptocurrencies. Earlier this month, the accounts were shut down without proper explanation.
Banco Estado gave a statement saying that it decided “not operate with companies that are dedicated to the issuance or creation, brokerage, intermediation or serve as a platform for the so-called cryptocurrencies.”
Additionally, the banks were sued by the exchange as the act was considered ‘unjustified’ and ‘arbitrary’ and the lawsuit continues against 10 banks.
In an interview, Guillermo Torrealba, the CEO of Buda said:
“Chile is showing its “B” side, that of being an extremely conservative country, even though we make huge efforts for the world to see us as liberals.”
He also said that the veneer is thin, even though Chile shows itself as liberal to new technologies. He further added:
“They’re killing an entire industry. It won’t be possible to buy and sell crypto in a safe business in Chile. We’ll have to go back five years and trade in person. It seems very arbitrary.”
He also believes that it is the banking sector that is controlling and regulating the crypto firms and not the laws, rulings, or legislation as there are none that can prevent the crypto firms from operating without any interference. He says:
“There hasn’t been one regulator, legislator or government official saying that cryptocurrencies aren’t legal, it was just the decision of a very powerful sector of the economy: the banking industry.”
Furthermore, Milton Maluhv the CEO of Itau Corpbanca argued that their bank supports startups and innovations, however, cryptocurrencies are not readily accepted as they need more regulations.
A warning was issued on cryptocurrencies on April 5 by the country’s Financial Stability Council, making it a possible reason for the blanket ban as the banks started shutting the accounts after the warning.
A Redditor said:
“Seems some finally got, who are the real monopolists outhere. Good to hear!”
Shrikar, a Twitter user from India said:
“RBI Any thoughts?”