NatWest has announced limitations on crypto payments in an effort to protect customers against the scourge of crypto-related crime after £329m was lost by consumers last year.

Starting now, a daily limit of £1,000 and a 30-day payment limited of £5000 to cryptocurrency exchanges is being implemented to help protect customers losing life-changing sums of money.

Cryptocurrency investments are often made through legitimate exchange platforms. These websites let customers buy, sell or exchange cryptocurrencies for other digital currency or traditional currency.

According to NatWest, men over 35 are most at risk of crypto-crime as they are willing to take on risky investments.

The cost-of-living crisis is also having an impact with promises of high returns used by criminals to entice investors.

Cryptocurrency scams are often advertised online offering high returns on investments.

Criminals play on a lack of understanding of how cryptocurrency markets work and their unpredictability, to encourage investors to transfer money to exchanges, which are often set up in the customer’s own name by the criminal or by the victim, under duress from the criminal.

Stuart Skinner, Head of Fraud Protection NatWest, says: “You should always have sole control of your cryptocurrency wallet and nobody else should have access. If you didn’t set the wallet up yourself or can’t access the money then this is likely to be a scam.

“We have seen an increase in the number of scams using cryptocurrency exchanges and we are acting to protect our customers.”

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Adding to the risk, cryptocurrency is not protected by the UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme and more are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

In fact, the FCA recently closed down a few UK cyrpto ATMs as none are currently under regulation and were therefore operating illegally.

NatWest has provided further guidance to help keep their customers save while pursuing crypto, including:

• Never sharing the password of a crypto wallet with anyone, even if a crypto investor says they need it to deposit money.
• Reading all information slowly and carefully when pursuing an investment – keeping an eye out for typos and grammatical mistakes can signal a website is dubious.
• Be wary of giveaways – social media is awash with crypto criminals using fake messages from well known companies and celebrities promoting giveaways to fake accounts. Even responses within the advertisements are often faked.