Canadian banks tell BTC exchanges, 'Take off'
A number of Canadian bitcoin exchanges are running into regulatory challenges, as the country's big banks move to close their accounts, in many cases without explanation. Earlier this month, the Royal Bank of Canada closed the accounts of Calgary-based VirtEx as well as Canadian Bitcoins, an Ottawa-based bitcoin exchange. Canadian Bitcoins has also had its TD Bank account cancelled. "They shut down our account without any reason," said VirtEx owner Joseph David told the Financial Post. "They just said we have the right to refuse service to whomever we wish." James Grant, the owner of....
Related News
Some Canadian Bitcoin exchanges have reportedly received letters from financial regulators reassuring them they do not have to follow the detailed rules required by US regulators, and used recently to seize Mt. Gox funds. According to online news service The Register letters were sent to several Canadian exchanges which said they are not considered money services businesses. The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FTRACC): "confirmed the exchanges were not actually money service businesses and were therefore exempt from laws governing this type of firm." But this....
Canada’s central bank, the Bank of Canada, and five other Canadian banks (like a growing number of banks around the world) are experimenting with blockchain technology and a possible digital dollar as the growing demand for digital fintech payment systems puts the squeeze on the traditional banking sector. At a recent IMF/World Bank conference hosted by the U.S. Federal Reserve, an estimated 90 central banks, including the Bank of Canada, came forward to talk about their research into and experiments with distributed ledger technology (DLT), the blockchain and digital currencies. The big....
A survey conducted by professional services firm Accenture has revealed that nine out of 10 major U.S., Canadian and European banks are currently exploring blockchain technology in the field of payments. The survey, titled ‘Blockchain Technology: How banks are building a real-time global payment network’ [PDF] canvassed the opinions of 32 of the top commercial banking professionals in the banking industry. Notably, the transformational potential of blockchain technology in the payments space was under the spotlight. Executives participating in the survey included those from 11 of the top....
Since the beginning of the year, two of the major Canadian exchanges have shut down their operations bringing up difficult times for Canadian Bitcoiners. This has reduced the ability for Canadian bitcoin enthusiasts to easily buy and sell the digital currency. But not everything is bad news, as some regulatory pressure is on exchanges such as QuadrigaCX, Cointrader and Coinsquare.io working hard to improve their services. Coinsquare.io already opened a CAD order book on their exchange platform some time ago and now the Canadian exchange announce a new partnership with INTERAC®, one of the....
In a revelation on Wednesday, the Bank of Canada – Canada’s central bank – said that it is developing a digital currency called CAD-Coin, in collaboration with Canadian banks and New York-based blockchain startup R3. In a private presentation during the payments industry conference Payments Panorama in Calgary, the Bank of Canada revealed it is developing a digital equivalent of the Canadian dollar called CAD-Coin. Five of the biggest Canadian banks – Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), RBC, Toronto-Dominion Bank and Scotiabank are revealed to be participants, by....