Argentina’s Biggest Banks Will Start Allowing Crypto Trading

Argentina’s biggest banks Banco Galicia and Burbank will start allowing crypto trading and purchasing four crypto assets including BTC through their accounts at the bank so let’s have a closer look at today’s latest cryptocurrency news.

Argentina’s biggest banks announced they will allow customers to make crypto purchases. The reports show that 60% of the respondents to the Argentian poll asked for even more access to crypto which catalyzed the bank’s decisions to start allowing crypto trading. Affiliate at marekt research Americas Market Intelligence Ignacio Carballo posted some confirmation screenshots of Banco Galicia’s online interface whcih showed it started supporting BTC, ETH, USD Coin, Ripple purhcases. South American nation has the sixth-highest crypto adoption rate in the world and the data firm Statista estimates that 21% of the Argentines used or owned crypto by 2021.

.#IMPORTANTE: El Banco Galicia incorpora función de comprar #criptomonedas!

Se transforma así en el PRIMER BANCO DE ARGENTINA en ofrecer el servicio #critpo. Impresionante paso de la Banca Tradicional.

(P.S.: hay que decirlo: chupate esa mandarina!) pic.twitter.com/0Kpi3oMUIL

— Ignacio E. Carballo (@IECarballo) May 2, 2022

Allowing customers to buy BTC and another crypto via their bank could help Argentines stay ahead of the crushing inflation in the country with the latest data from the data tracker Trading Economics saying that Argentina’s inflation rate in April was 55% and the proponents saying that BTC’s scarcity and the decentralization make it the ideal inflation hedge. A month ago, the town of Corradino in Argentina purchased mining rigs and planning on starting the mining operation as a way of earning BTC to fight inflation, and its income from mining was estimated to be a few hundred dollars per month.

Taking into account the high adoption rate, the mayor of Argentina’s Buenos Aires annoucned that the city will start accepting crypto as payments for public financial services with more plans announced to launch a blockchain-based digital identification platform for the residents. However, Argentina is not the biggest country in South America that took major steps forward with crypto adoption since the Brazilian senate already approved the BTC law bill that can help add a regulatory framework for the local crypto industry but it needs to pass one more committee to get signed into law by President Jair Bolsonaro.

As earlier reported, Argentina Is set to include crypto companies in their AML laundering regulations. Argentina cracked down on crypto and it involved crypto companies in its wider anti-money laundering regime. Argentina’s Unidad de Informacion Financiera is the country’s competent authority when it came to regulating the money laundering risks and it is now working on adding crypto companies to the list of entities that are subject to AML reporting requirements.