The Central Bank of Romania has warned local lenders that they should not invest in Bitcoin as it could lead to long-term damage for reputations. BNR (Romania’s National Bank) has stated that local credit institutions should not get involved in the cryptocurrency industry, in terms of offering services relating to investments and trading of digital currencies.

The national bank has decided to release the warning shot to local banking institutions in the wake of the recent volatile market changes within cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin in particular dropping in valuation quite dramatically since the turn of the year.

Local banks in the country were warned as far back as March 2015 about the dangers of investing in digital currencies due to the high risk of losing money. As the interest in investment from the public has increased, the Central Bank feels the time has come to warn local banks again not to get involved for fear of losing money on a much bigger scale.

The fast price increases have led the BNR to categorise cryptocurrencies as ‘speculative, extremely volatile and risky’; but despite this there is no apparent threat to the stability of the Romanian financial system currently, as they are being traded in such low volumes.