Indian banks may start turning down potential customers, because of their religion, as per a recent report. Furthermore, protesters in Hong Kong are boycotting one of the largest banks in the country, HSBC, due to the latest alleged political arrests. Naturally, among economic and financial turmoil of the kind, it’s hard not to bring Bitcoin’s decentralized nature, which solves all of the above issues.
Banks To Judge By Religion?
According to a recent local report, Indian citizens who want to open a bank account may soon start answering more in-depth Know-Your-Customer (KYC) questions, including their religion. The Reserve Bank of India will reportedly make new amendments to the Foreign Exchange Management Regulations from last year, emphasizing on which citizens can open a bank account or purchase a residential property:
A person being a citizen of Bangladesh or Pakistan belonging to minority communities in those countries, namely, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians who is residing in India and has been granted a Long term Visa (LTV) by the central government is permitted to open with an authorized deal only one NRO Account. The said NRO account shall be converted to a resident account once the person becomes a citizen of India within the meaning of the Citizenship Act, 1955. – Reads the text.
However, the new act will purportedly exclude atheists, Muslim migrants, and people coming from neighboring countries like Tibet, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar. According to the report, migrants coming from the unmentioned countries will be excluded and won’t be able to open bank accounts nor buy properties.
Hong Kong Protesters Boycott HSBC
One of the largest banking and financial services organizations in the world, HSBC Bank, recently closed a corporate account, allegedly linked to the protesters in Hong Kong. According to the notification, the account usage didn’t match the original purpose.
Additionally, as Cryptopotato reported on Friday, Hong Kong police have arrested four citizens taking part in the protests. Moreover, they froze assets worth $9 million, claiming that they were used for money-laundering, and buying merchandise that can help the protesters.
The actions mentioned above lead to a somewhat expected reaction as the protests continued. In fact, some of them even called for a boycott of HSBC, even though the bank officially denies any possible relation by saying:
“Our decision (to close the account) is completely unrelated to the Hong Kong police’s arrest of the four individuals on 19 December 2019. We closed the account in November 2019 following direct instructions from the customer.”
The cryptocurrency community was also rather vocal hinting that “Bitcoin solves this” since it’s a decentralized digital asset without a central point of authority. It can be used by anyone in the world, no matter the location, business intentions, religion, or country of origin.
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