APPG Sends 'Dear CEO' Letters to UK Bank Chiefs Demanding Transparency on Crypto Service Denials
APPG Sends ‘Dear CEO’ Letters to UK Bank Chiefs Demanding Transparency on Crypto Service Denials #
The UK Parliament’s cross-party Crypto and Digital Assets All-Party Parliamentary Group has written directly to the chief executives of all major British banks, pressing them to account for a pattern of refusals to serve cryptocurrency and digital asset businesses that lawmakers say could undermine the country’s ambitions as a digital finance hub.
The “Dear CEO” letter, dated 11 August and signed by the APPG’s two co-chairs, Labour MP Gurinder Singh Josan CBE and Lord Vaizey of Didcot, a former Conservative digital economy minister, puts six formal questions to bank bosses. Lenders are asked to set out their current policy on serving crypto firms, whether they provide accounts or payment services to such companies, what restrictions or limits they place on crypto-related transactions for retail and business customers, which regulatory, compliance, risk, and commercial factors shape those decisions, and whether they anticipate changing their stance once the Financial Conduct Authority’s forthcoming mandatory crypto regime takes effect.
The FCA finalised its rules for the sector in June, with the full authorisation regime set to become mandatory in October 2027. The regulator is expected to open its application gateway to crypto firms in September 2026. The APPG said the looming regulatory shift makes the banking access question especially pressing: FCA authorisation, the group noted, will not automatically guarantee that firms can open or retain bank accounts.
The letter is part of a broader formal inquiry into banking access for the digital asset sector that the APPG launched on 21 July. The group is accepting written evidence from banks, payment firms, fintechs, and crypto businesses until 31 August, with a report containing recommendations to the government to follow. The co-chairs said the direct outreach to bank chief executives is not intended to pre-empt those findings.
The inquiry cites industry data showing widespread difficulty in accessing banking services. A January 2026 survey by the UK Cryptoasset Business Council, titled “Locked Out,” found that 80% of cryptocurrency exchanges reported a rise in customer friction linked to banking, while 70% said conditions had become more hostile compared with the prior year. One unnamed platform told the APPG it had experienced close to £1 billion in rejected transactions during 2025 alone.
The APPG co-chairs said the group had received accounts of “repeated instances” in which crypto businesses were unable to open accounts with UK banks, and warned that restricted banking access risked becoming “one of the single biggest barriers to growth” for the sector. The inquiry will also benchmark the UK’s approach against international peers including the United States, Hong Kong, Australia, and the European Union. No major bank had publicly responded to the letter at the time of writing.
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