National Australia Bank takes sides against Crypto!

• Financial

Australian NAB Group Declares War on Crypto! NAB announced major restrictions on deposits to some exchanges, citing significant security issues as the reason.
The banking group would also have blocked payments for millions of Australian dollars in the last quarter alone, as they were linked to possible scams.

National Australia Bank has decided to stop payments to high-risk cryptocurrency exchanges, without however mentioning in the document what they are and the reasons that led to the ban. Nearly 50% of scams reported to AFCE were related to cryptocurrencies in the last 30 days.

NAB is a member of this independent initiative, which brings together private companies, government and law enforcement agencies, as well as industry groups to fight financial and cyber crime. This is what was reported in the NAB press release, which was then followed by the statement by Chris Sheenan, head of the group's investigations division: "New customer protections as already announced by NAB today, by blocking payments made to high-risk crypto exchanges.

Nearly 50% of scams reported to AFCE were related to cryptocurrencies in the past 30 days. NAB is a member of this independent initiative, which brings together private companies, government and law enforcement companies, as well as industry groups to fight financial and cybercrime.

More broadly, crypto-themed scams are the security threat growing fastest, with Australians losing 221 million a year to these scams. These scammers are part of transnational and organized crime groups – and we see them using crypto platforms to send money, often overseas, and pretty quickly." National Australia Bank is one of the four largest financial institutions in Australia in terms of market capitalisation, earnings and customers.

NAB was ranked the world's 21st-largest bank measured by market capitalisation[6] and 52nd-largest bank in the world as measured by total assets in 2019. NAB operated 3,500 Bank@Post locations—including 7,000+ ATMs across Australia, New Zealand, and Asia—and served 9 million customers.

NAB has an AA- long-term issuer rating by Standard & Poor's. On 1 June 2022, National Australia Bank Limited (NAB) acquired the consumer banking business from Citigroup Pty Ltd (Citi), an Australian branch of Citibank.

On 19 January 2023, NAB announced that it would create a stablecoin called the AUDN that would be pegged to the Australian Dollar, and that the digital asset would be on the Ethereum network. The objective is to streamline cross-border banking transactions, and will also be used for trading carbon credits. AUDN is expected to be live in mid-2023.