The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has put its plans for a second crypto trading services pilot program on hold indefinitely and cut off access to those in the first round of testing.
CBA sent Cointelegraph a transcript of a bank briefing on Tuesday, in which CEO Matt Comyn said he was still awaiting regulatory clarity. It also said it was “working with a number of regulators very closely, as you can imagine, on the proper treatment of this particular product:”
“Our intention remains, at this point, to restart the pilot, but there are still a couple of things that we want to work on on a regulatory front to make sure that’s the most appropriate thing to do.”
Comyn said a Treasury proposal for the program is already under review.but did not share any expected timeframe for its completion.
Comyn said the wild volatility of the past week seemed to support the need for the extension, even though the second pilot program had already been frozen in April. after financial regulators balked at giving regular bank users easy access to cryptocurrencies. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) objected to the CBA’s services citing a lack of protections for consumers.
Said: “Clearly this is a very volatile sector that continues to attract enormous interest.”
“But alongside that volatility, awareness and I guess scale, certainly globally, you can see there’s a lot of interest from regulators and people in how best to regulate that.”
Comyn also suggested that the bank was awaiting the outcome of the May 21 federal election. If a new regime comes to power, it could mean sweeping changes to the crypto regulatory landscape.which, according to Comyn, “will be a food for thought for the incoming government.”
Swinburne University Professor of Leadership and Entrepreneurship Dimitrios Salampasis told The Guardian that the CBA can go slow in the event of reputational damage.
Considering the recent price crash in the cryptocurrency markets due to the collapse of Terra, Dr. Slampasis said “Balancing risk, brand equity and regulatory clarity will be key to minimizing disruption to CBA’s current business model.”
The CBA was the first major bank in Australia to offer cryptocurrency services through its mobile app in November.. As the pilot program progressed, he promised all 6.5 million users of the app access once it was fully rolled out. As of now, those plans are on hold indefinitely.
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