One year after Rishi Sunak pledged to make the UK a crypto-friendly hub, UK crypto executives say banks are increasingly unwilling to support crypto companies
Edouard Daunizeau's crypto company SavingBlocks has an office in East London's technology hub and more than 200 customers testing its services.
Context & Ripple Effects
The report turns the UK’s crypto-hub ambition into an operational test: firms can attract customers and maintain a London presence, but need bank accounts and payment access to function. It follows closely on reports of lengthy, difficult banking applications for crypto firms, suggesting the problem was already broader than one company.
First-order effects
- UK crypto companies face a more constrained path to basic banking services, making day-to-day operations and onboarding harder even as firms such as SavingBlocks test services with customers.
- The gap between the government’s pro-crypto positioning and banks’ risk appetite becomes immediately visible to founders choosing whether to build and operate in the UK.
Second-order effects
- Crypto startups may spend more time and resources securing banking relationships, raising the practical cost of operating relative to better-supported fintech businesses.
- London’s wider fintech competitiveness debate is sharpened: calls for reforms after SVB UK’s collapse gain an additional example of how financial infrastructure can affect startup location decisions.
Third-order effects
- If banks continue to treat crypto as a category-level risk, formal policy support alone may not establish the UK as a crypto hub; the sector’s growth will depend on whether regulation, bank compliance practices, and market access become more aligned.
- The episode fits a durable crypto legitimacy gap, in which regulated financial intermediaries—not only startups or policymakers—determine whether crypto businesses can participate in mainstream commerce.
The trend: Crypto policy is increasingly being judged by whether it unlocks reliable banking and payments access, not merely by governments’ stated ambition to attract the sector.