Australia’s Commonwealth Bank pauses crypto trading
Australia’s largest bank, the Commonwealth Bank, has made the move to pause the launch of crypto trading through its app after a period of uncertainty and instability in the market. Back in November, Commonwealth Bank announced that it was planning to introduce a function that lets its users buy and sell crypto through its app.
There was initially to be a pilot project, and then the bank would be introducing more features for customers in 2022, however, the rollout is now paused indefinitely.
Matt Comyn, the chief executive of the Commonwealth Bank, has said they are working on customer feedback but that to advance to the next stages of the project, they would need more regulation.
He released a statement: “As events of the last week have reinforced, it is a very volatile sector that remains an enormous amount of interest. But alongside that volatility and awareness and I guess the scale, certainly globally, you can see there is a lot of interest from regulators and people thinking about the best way to regulate that.”
There are currently consultations underway on cryptocurrency regulations, with Comyn suggesting that the post-election government will focus on “how to most appropriately regulate the sector.”
He stated: “We want to continue to play a leading role in providing input into that and shaping the most appropriate regulatory outcome, “Our intention still, at this stage is to restart the pilot, but there is still a couple of things that we want to work through on a regulatory front to make sure that that is most appropriate.” With the collapse of stablecoin Terra earlier this month, cryptocurrency is facing a difficult and unpredictable period.