Barely two weeks ago, Chilean Major banks shut down the bank accounts of top cryptocurrency exchanges in the country without clear explanation. The cryptocurrency exchanges, however, filed legal action against the banks for shutting down their accounts, dubbing the banks’ actions as “unjust.”
Buda, one of the affected cryptocurrency exchanges, has successfully persuaded the anti-monopoly court to order two major banks to reactivate its accounts. The cryptocurrency exchange filed a lawsuit against ten Chilean banks.
The court passed a verdict that both the state bank Banco del Estado de Chile and Itaú Corpbanca should reactivate the bank accounts of the cryptocurrency exchange. According to reports gathered, the order may have been a way to prevent a blanket ban on cryptocurrencies in the country.
The three Chilean cryptocurrency exchanges whose accounts were shut down with no proper explanation are Buda, CryptoMKT, and Orionx. One of the banks, Banco Estado, claimed that it made a decision “not to operate with companies that are dedicated to the issuance or creation, brokerage, intermediation or serve as a platform for the so-called cryptocurrencies.”
The cryptocurrency exchanges responded by taking the case to a court of appeals, a move causing anxiety in the cryptocurrency community. Guillermo Torrealba, Buda’s CEO, lamented:
“They’re killing an entire industry. It won’t be possible to buy and sell crypto in a safe business in Chile. We’ll have to go back five years and trade in person. It seems very arbitrary.”
Some news outlets are speculating the ban comes directly from the Chilean government, as Chile’s Financial Stability Council, a corporation that has representatives from the country’s central bank, the Finance Ministry, and other regulators, issued a warning on the crypto industry on April 5.
On March 27, the CEO of Itau Corpbanca, Milton Maluhv announced that his bank welcomes startups and new technologies. He, however, argued that the cryptocurrency industry lacks proper regulation. He also stated that the “bank is following internal norms to decide on closing individual accounts.”
As covered, Martin Jofré, co-founder of CryptoMKT, stated that Buda currently has no banking. Orionx revealed that its users’ funds are fully secure. The exchange went further to say that it believes the bank’s actions are unfair.
