Nordea, the largest bank in Scandinavia, has announced that its employees can no longer trade cryptocurrencies. This move will impact all 31,500 people who work for the bank. The ban is expected to start at the end of February and will work for all types of cryptocurrencies including the bitcoin and other major players.
Nordea states it is aiming to keep its employees protected. This comes as there have been concerns about illegal or unethical activities in the cryptocurrency market. Nordea is hoping to keep its employees from being at risk of losing their funds in the market.
There had been news in the past week that Nordea would consider a ban on cryptocurrency trading among its employees. However, the original reports stated that only employees who work with large-value clients would be outlawed from trading such currencies. The ban has expanded to where all employees with Nordea are outlawed from buying and trading those currencies.
This move marks the first such known instance in the world of any bank outlawing people from interacting with the bitcoin or other similar currencies.
When Will the Ban Start?
The trading ban will officially start on February 28. Nordea is actively discouraging its employees from trying to invest in the bitcoin and other currencies before that ban begins.
It is unclear as to how employees and others in the field are going to respond to this move. It is uncertain over how the ban will be enforced as well, a point that may be noticed over how many people that the ban is being subjected to already have investments in the bitcoin among other currencies.
What About Those Who Have Investments Already?
The ban from Nordea will not impact any employees who already have cryptocurrency investments. Nordea does encourage those who have such investments to sell them off as soon as possible though.
Criticism Abound
Nordea has been subjected to criticism over this decision to outlaw its employees from trading cryptocurrencies. These include complaints from the Danish Financial Federation. There are arguments suggesting that while employees at the bank should not be trading or speculating on anything that is illegal, cryptocurrencies have never been deemed to be illegal in any manner.
There is also the argument that this move from Nordea goes against the rules for investing used in some countries that the bank operates out of. This is especially the case with Denmark. Unions in the country state that employees can invest in anything they might be interested in. This is provided that whatever it is people are investing in is not considered to be potentially risky or harmful to the company one is employed with.
Some additional concerns on Twitter have been coming from people who argue that Nordea is being hypocritical about the ban. This comes as people in many countries Nordea operates in can place their money in international tax havens without being at risk of losing too much money. The argument is that people should be allowed to trade the bitcoin even with this in mind.
