UK banks HSBC and Barclays froze the accounts of a company after its owner transacted on a cryptocurrency trading platform with his personal account.
The company is called 50cycles. It has been selling electric bicycles since 2003, and now has showrooms in London, Loughborough, and Shoreham-by-Sea.
CEO Scott Snaith told iNews that after conducting some large Bitcoin transactions with Finnish Bitcoin exchange LocalBitcoins, he found that he could no longer access his accounts at the two banks. This was despite the fact that the people he traded with were UK citizens with verified IDs, and the transactions were, according to Snaith, “entirely transparent and above board”.
Further, he said that he made the transactions with his personal bank account, not his business account (although they are linked).
After turning to the Financial Ombudsman, HSBC relented but Barclays told him to seek legal advice.