Stand With Crypto UK Campaign Targets Bank Crypto Blocks

Stand With Crypto UK, the Coinbase-backed advocacy group, called on its 286,000 members to file formal complaints against British retail banks over blanket restrictions on crypto transactions. The campaign launched Wednesday, the group said in a press release.

The restrictions fall into two buckets. Complete blocks stop all transfers and card payments to crypto exchanges. Chase UK, Starling, TSB, Virgin Money and Metro Bank use that approach. Hard transfer caps limit how much money users can send. Barclays, HSBC, Nationwide, NatWest, Santander and Monzo set those limits.

Barclays, one of the banks imposing hard caps, carries an Alpha Score of 59 out of 100, a Moderate label. That score reflects mixed sentiment around the stock. The bank's crypto policy sits alongside its broader digital asset exploration, which includes hiring for blockchain teams.

The campaign draws on data from the U.K. Cryptoassets Business Council's "Locked Out" report from January 2026. That report surveyed 10 exchanges: Coinbase, Kraken, Uphold, Xapo Bank, Zumo, Wirex, OKX, Luno, Bitpanda and Gemini. The FCA separately found that British banks block or delay 40% of all domestic crypto transactions. Over the past 12 months, 80% of those exchanges reported a rise in blocked transfers. One platform said banks rejected up to 1 million pounds, more than $1 million, in a single year.

Around 8% of UK adults hold cryptoassets, according to FCA research. The restrictions apply regardless of an individual's risk profile, Stand With Crypto UK said. Many of the same banks are hiring digital asset teams and exploring crypto products internally, making the retail customer blocks anti-competitive, the group argued.

A day after the Locked Out report, a spokesperson for HM Treasury told CoinDesk that government officials expected banks to treat all businesses fairly, including crypto services providers. "We would not expect such licensed firms to be subject to account or transaction restrictions by banking services providers," the spokesperson said. Under the Payment Services Regulations 2017, banks are obligated to execute payments that meet account conditions.

"People across the UK are being blocked from accessing a legal asset class because banks have chosen to impose blanket restrictions on an entire sector," said Adriana Ennab, director at Stand With Crypto UK, in a statement. "From today, they are formally telling their banks that these restrictions are unacceptable."

Katie Harries, head of policy, Europe, at Coinbase, said the government's vision to make the UK a global hub for digital assets requires retail participation. "But the banks are choking off the crucial on-ramp from fiat money into crypto," she said in a statement.

Puneet Mehta, a former Wall Street engineer and data scientist, said the rapid expansion of AI enterprise software will increase demand for stablecoins and blockchain. That view ties the banking restrictions to a broader bottleneck: if retail on-ramps stay blocked, the user base for tokenized assets and stablecoin payments stays smaller.

The campaign gives members a formal complaint template to send to their banks. Stand With Crypto UK said the goal is to force banks to justify their policies publicly. No timeline for a response was given.