The Crypto and Digital Assets All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) has written to the chief executives of major UK banks, requesting detailed explanations of how they provide banking services to digital asset businesses and what drives decisions to refuse or close accounts.

The August 11 "Dear CEO" letter, signed by co-chairs Gurinder Singh Josan CBE MP and Lord Vaizey of Didcot, follows persistent reports from digital asset companies that opening and maintaining UK bank accounts remains a significant operational hurdle.

Banks are being asked to disclose which crypto businesses they currently serve, what factors influence account refusals, what restrictions they impose on crypto-related transactions, and whether their approach could shift under the incoming regulatory framework. The APPG also wants to understand what government or regulators could do to make banks more comfortable serving legitimate firms.

The APPG warned that "access to banking services could be one of the single biggest barriers to growth for UK crypto and digital asset businesses."

However, the letter carries political weight but no regulatory force. According to the UK Parliament's own description, APPGs are informal cross-party groups with no official status within Parliament. They can conduct inquiries, gather evidence, and make recommendations, but cannot order banks to provide accounts or set banking policy. The inquiry is instead trying to establish where the friction comes from and whether government or regulators have a role in reducing it.

The issue also intersects with a wider UK debate over account closures. Following the 2023 controversy over Coutts Bank closing the account of politician Nigel Farage, the government introduced rules requiring banks to provide longer notice periods and clearer reasons for shutting accounts. Crypto firms report that sector-specific debanking persists despite those broader reforms.

Corporate Debanking vs. Retail Payment Caps

The APPG's inquiry examines two related but distinct problems that are often conflated. Corporate access concerns whether a crypto company can open and maintain the accounts and payment services necessary to operate. Retail restrictions, by contrast, affect customers who already hold bank accounts but face limits when transferring money to crypto exchanges.

The retail side is visible in banks' published limits. HSBC caps identified crypto-exchange payments at £2,500 per transaction and £10,000 over a rolling 30-day period. NatWest allows £1,000 per day and £5,000 over 30 days, while Monzo uses a £5,000 rolling 30-day allowance.

Banks cite fraud and scam risks as justification for those controls. An industry survey by the UK Cryptoasset Business Council estimated that around 40% of attempted bank transfers to crypto exchanges were blocked or delayed, though that figure measures payment friction reported by exchanges rather than the share of crypto businesses denied corporate accounts.

Beyond retail scams, banks must also navigate broader financial-crime risks. In May, the UK sanctioned HTX alongside other entities accused of supporting Russia's war economy, illustrating the sanctions and counterparty exposure financial institutions are expected to monitor when dealing with the sector.

Corporate access becomes the harder policy question, particularly for firms that will eventually pass through the UK's full FCA authorisation process.

The FCA Regime Raises the Compliance Bar

Britain is preparing to transition from its relatively narrow crypto registration system to full financial-services regulation, even as concerns over banking access intensify in political circles. The existing registration regime under the Money Laundering Regulations has been in place since 2020, and the FCA has refused or seen withdrawn a substantial share of applications, leaving a limited pool of registered firms.

On March 20, Economic Secretary to the Treasury Lucy Rigby told Parliament that the government was aware of banking-access problems faced by crypto firms and would not expect companies licensed under the new regime to face restrictions simply because they operate in the sector.

The APPG launched its wider banking-access inquiry on July 21, followed by the August 11 letters to bank CEOs. Written submissions remain open until August 31.

The FCA says the new cryptoasset regime is expected to begin on October 25, 2027. Firms carrying out covered activities will need full authorisation and must meet broader conduct, prudential, operational-resilience, and financial-crime standards than those required under today's Money Laundering Regulations.

The UK is not moving in isolation. The EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which began phasing into effect from late 2024, establishes a comparable framework across the Channel, meaning firms operating in both jurisdictions face overlapping but distinct compliance requirements—and regulators will be able to compare outcomes on banking access and market integrity.

Robinhood U.K. provides a useful example. Its recent FCA registration clears an important hurdle under the current AML framework, but it does not automatically grant permission for activities covered by the incoming FSMA regime. Firms within scope will still need the appropriate authorisation once the new rules take effect.

For banks assessing those companies, full authorisation should provide more information about regulatory standing, governance, and controls. The decision over whether to provide banking services, however, remains with the bank.

An FCA Licence Does Not Eliminate Bank Risk

Authorisation is only one component of the assessment a bank makes before taking on a customer. The FCA requires banks to identify, assess, and manage money-laundering risks, and those assessments shape both customer due diligence and decisions over whether to start or maintain a relationship.

A fully authorised crypto firm can still be costly or difficult to service. Cross-border activity, customer geography, transaction velocity, ownership structures, sanctions exposure, and complex money flows can all add to the compliance burden even when the company itself is regulated.

Banks can walk away where they believe money-laundering risk cannot be managed effectively. At the same time, FCA guidance states that risk-based decision-making should not turn into blanket treatment of an entire category of customers.

An FCA licence can therefore strengthen the information available to a bank without replacing its own assessment. A crypto company may satisfy the regulator and still fall outside an individual bank's risk appetite.

No Legal Right to a Bank Account

Even full authorisation would not give a crypto company a legal entitlement to banking services. In its 2026 perimeter report, the FCA acknowledged that companies operating in sectors where banks have lower risk appetites, including cryptoassets, can find it harder to obtain accounts.

UK businesses have no general legal right to a bank account, and the FCA cannot require a bank to provide one to a commercial customer. Any attempt to create such a right would require action from government or Parliament rather than a change to crypto authorisation rules.

The regulator is separately reviewing business-account access during 2026, including sectors where banks have become less willing to take on risk. Crypto authorisation and banking access therefore remain separate decisions: one determines whether a firm can carry out regulated activity, while the other depends on whether a private bank is prepared to service it.

What the APPG Inquiry Can Actually Change

The more useful question for the APPG is no longer whether FCA authorisation should force banks to accept crypto companies. It is what legitimate firms will still need to demonstrate to banks after they have passed the regulator's own assessment.

One of the questions in the August letter gets directly at that problem by asking banks what additional guidance or policy changes would make them more comfortable serving legitimate crypto businesses. Their responses could expose uncertainty over acceptable risk, gaps in supervisory guidance, weaknesses in information-sharing between banks and regulators, or business models that remain difficult to service even under the new regime.

Clearer expectations around how FCA status should feed into bank onboarding could narrow some of that uncertainty without turning authorisation into a guaranteed bank account. The 2027 framework will determine which firms can operate under full financial-services regulation; the APPG inquiry must now establish what, if anything, needs to change on the banking side once they get there.