Australia\'s banking response to the bear market in cryptocurrencies is positive – they\'re not giving up just yet. The country\'s \"big four\" largest banks confirmed on February 5th that they\'re not currently planning to prevent their customers from purchasing bitcoin, or other cryptocurrencies.

Banks in the UK and United States have begun to pronounce a ban on cryptocurrency purchasing with credit cards, but Australia\'s big four confirmed that they are not yet planning any clampdown, even after the major market plunge last week. Lloyds in the UK and America\'s Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America have all issued bans in the past week.

ANZ (the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group) told press sources that it neither prohibits customers from buying digital currencies, nor prevents customers accepting such as a payment method. They do, however, monitor all cryptocurrency transactions to look out for unusual behaviour. This is in accordance with their regulatory obligations and helps protect against fraud. They have no banking relations with exchanges, traders or issuers of digital currencies, since such operations are not yet regulated.

NAB (National Australia Bank) said it might prohibit \"certain cryptocurrency transactions\" if they gave rise to security concerns. The fourth major bank, Westpac, echoed ANZ\'s policy of non-restriction.