At least five of Great Britain's 17 largest business current account providers publicly exclude some crypto businesses, a review by The Coinformer found, even as the government says firms licensed under its coming regulatory regime shouldn't face restrictions simply because they operate in the sector.
- The five providers are Monzo, Mettle, Santander, Tide and Zempler Bank.
- Together they account for 29% of the providers in the latest Business Banking Service Quality survey, which Ipsos conducts as a regulatory requirement.
- Ipsos describes the participants as Great Britain's 17 largest business current account providers.
The finding provides a public measure of the banking barriers raised by UK lawmakers on Tuesday. The Financial Times reported that Lord Ed Vaizey, a former Conservative minister, and Gurinder Singh Josan, a Labour lawmaker, wrote to the leaders of British banks asking them to explain their policies toward crypto companies.
The two co-chairs of the Crypto and Digital Assets All-Party Parliamentary Group warned that poor banking access could become "one of the single biggest barriers" to the growth of the UK crypto industry and undermine the country's coming regulatory regime.
Five providers name crypto in their eligibility rules
- Monzo says it can't support businesses involved in "currency exchanges including virtual currencies" under a list of industries excluded regardless of business type. The wording doesn't exclude every company working with crypto, though it explicitly rules out virtual-currency exchange businesses.
- Mettle, NatWest's digital business account provider, lists "virtual currency or cryptocurrency" among the business activities and industries it does not support.
- Santander requires sole traders applying for a business account through its app to confirm that their business "isn't involved in cryptocurrency."
- Tide says it can't service businesses actively issuing or exchanging virtual currencies. It adds that the restriction includes interaction with crypto assets and exchanges, including transactional activity.
- Zempler Bank includes "crypto currency traders" on its list of unsupported industries.
The scope therefore varies between providers. Mettle publishes a broad cryptocurrency exclusion, while Monzo and Zempler identify particular crypto activities. Santander's published restriction applies specifically to its sole-trader application route.
What the nearly 30% figure measures
The Coinformer reviewed the publicly available business-account eligibility and restriction pages for all 17 providers listed by Ipsos on Aug. 11.
A provider was counted only when its published rules explicitly connected business-account eligibility or support with cryptocurrency activity.
For instance, Starling excludes businesses conducting banking, credit and other financial services but doesn't explicitly mention cryptocurrency on its eligibility page, so it wasn't included.
The Co-operative Bank says it may block business-account payments to cryptocurrency merchants. That is a transaction restriction, rather than a published refusal to provide accounts to crypto companies, so it was also excluded from the count.
Handelsbanken allows customers to send up to £1,000 per payment to an FCA-registered crypto exchange. The limit is another transaction policy and doesn't establish whether the bank accepts or rejects crypto businesses as account holders.
- No current public crypto-specific business-account exclusion was established for the other 12 providers.
- That doesn't mean all 12 accept crypto companies.
- Their policies may be unpublished, narrower than the terms reviewed or decided individually during onboarding.
The 29% figure should therefore be read as a minimum based on explicit public rules.
Current policies meet the government's future promise
The government has previously acknowledged that crypto companies struggle to obtain banking services.
In a March 20 parliamentary answer, then-Economic Secretary to the Treasury Lucy Rigby said banking decisions were largely commercial, but businesses should be treated fairly.
- Under the coming regulatory regime, Rigby said, firms providing covered crypto services will need authorization from the FCA. The government "would not expect" licensed firms to face restrictions simply because of their sector.
- The Treasury used substantially the same language in a parliamentary answer in July 2025.
- The FCA's authorization window is due to open on Sept. 30, 2026, and the new regime will begin on Oct. 25, 2027.
The five providers' current rules don't say how they intend to treat companies authorized under that regime or whether their eligibility policies will change before it takes effect. The review, therefore, doesn't establish that they will restrict FCA-licensed firms after October 2027.
But it does show, however, that explicit sector-based exclusions remain in the public rules of nearly one-third of Great Britain's largest business account providers a little over a year before the regime begins.