Nordea Bank Announces Crypto Trading Ban For Its 31,500 Employees

Analysts in the cryptocurrency news today are shocked by one of the leading banks in Denmark, Nordea Bank, and its decision to ban cryptocurrency trading for all of its 31,500 employees. The ban will be officialized immediately and prohibits employees from trading even on their own time.

This prohibition was previously upheld on December 2 by a Danish court. At the time, a press release followed the ruling. Nordea Bank then issued a blog post, noting that “Employees are permitted to keep any existing [crypto] holdings,” and adding that they were encouraged to sell them.

Meanwhile, the finance industry union in Denmark known as Finansforbundet brought a class action lawsuit against Nordea and its cryptocurrency prohibition in 2018 – based on the ground that the ban interfered with the personal lives of the employees. It appears that this bank which includes the largest financial group in the Nordia countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) was worried that the employees might get mixed up with some unethical or criminal activities. Meanwhile, one spokesperson from Nordea Bank spoke about the labor court’s decision and said:

“The market for crypto-currencies is unregulated and not transparent. It makes it hard to monitor where the money comes from. It increases the risk that investors, including our employees, may unwillingly get involved in activities that are unethical or outright illegal.”

He also added that the company is “satisfied that the court ruled in our favour” and noted that Nordea Bank is confident about this decision.

“It [the decision] is allowing a corporation to impede the private lives of its employees. It is infringing upon the personal freedoms of its employees.”

There is in fact nothing out of the ordinary in Nordea’s prohibition. Some cryptocurrency exchanges have prohibited crypto purchases among employees and specialized their personnel within larger financial organizations such as commodities traders, which are commonly subject to restrictions on their personal assets.

The Danish court and its press release was designed to answer the question why is Nordea Bank doing this and referred to the prior statements from the bank which showed the following:

“Investments in cryptocurrency have been restricted due to the unregulated nature of these assets which are not subject to investor protection regulations or authority supervision and related risks including volatility and liquidity risk as well as financial crime risks, e.g. that proceeds that employees might obtain from selling bitcoins derive from criminal activities.”