No More Bitcoin for Nordea Bank Employees, Experts Question the Motive

An act of paternalism or a case of generic Bitcoin (BTC) distrust? It is hard to make out the exact reasons for Nordea Bank’s ban on its 31,500 employees trading in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies — even on their own time — a prohibition that was upheld on Dec. 2 by a Danish court.

In a press release posted by the court following its ruling, Nordea Bank noted that, “Employees are permitted to keep any existing [crypto] holdings,” though it added that they were encouraged to sell them.

As reported by Cointelegraph, Denmark’s finance industry union, Finansforbundet, brought a class-action lawsuit against Nordea’s cryptocurrency prohibition in 2018 on the grounds that the ban interfered with employees’ personal lives. It appears that the bank, the largest financial group in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden), was worried that its employees might unwittingly get mixed up with some unethical or even criminal activities. As a spokesperson…