I’ve just had the weirdest, legitimate Barclays call after i tried to deposit money to an exchange – It was 100% Barclays as well – checked the number & the money has landed on my exchange now
Only logical explanation i can think of is that Barclays are now conducting market research on their customers who send money to crypto exchanges in preparation for offering custody services. I’m guessing it’ll be packaged in some way to make it more palatable to their wealthy clients, perhaps an ”ISA” type account or some form of passive fund where Barclays/Copper take custody
5.5 years of sending money from my bank account to Kraken, I’ve never had one e-mail or call to verify anything, let alone any fraud prevention calls.
I send a small sum as a test transaction – lands in on the exchange in minutes
I send £2000 to the same address 10 mins later & receive a call IMMEDIATELY
Some of the questioning was just odd & very intrusive, but has never ever happened before.
The anti-fraud stuff i understand asking my details & ”where are you sending this & how did you fund it ” etc but then, proceeded to ask me, what was basically a market research questionnaire that I was emphatically told was ”necessary to clear the funds” but in hindsight wasn’t at all & the lady backed down & cleared the funds.
”So, what crypto coin are you buying…?” – excuse me? what relevance does that have? maybe i’m sending it to the exchange so i have liquid cash ready to deploy in future? that is so intrusive. All you need to know is that, yes it is me sending it & i know the account im sending it to….the lady asked me multiple times & said the funds wouldn’t be cleared until i refused outright & suddenly it wasn’t ”necessary” anymore?
These are all perfectly reasonable questions for a voluntary questionnaire, not a stressful ”fraud prevention” call because you’ve locked my funds & wont release until i declare my investment thesis & timings???
SHOCK HORROR:
https://news.sky.com/story/barclays-snaps-up-stake-in-2bn-cryptocurrency-firm-copper-12658295
The above link makes a lot more sense now in hindsight & I’ve never been more convinced banks like Barclays are edging closer to becoming a ”trusted” 3rd party for their customers to gain exposure to crypto, without having to actually custody the assets themselves. This is HUGE for institutional investors & lo and behold, Barclays now own a large stake in a UK, crypto, custody company. They’re currently conducting research to ascertain what level of demand there is for different cryptos & how willing their customers are to use a ”3rd party”
TLDR: banks are very intrusive & are using AML type calls to veil their market research into crypto & 3rd party demand – but this is net bullish for our ”fake internet money” as it’s likely setting the scene for their entryway into the industry – bringing along institutional money flows with it.
