> “HSBC has no appetite for direct exposure to virtual currencies and limited appetite to facilitate products or securities that derive their value from VCs (virtual currencies),” HSBC said in a statement.
But you wouldn't be? This is a product literally called "InvestDirect" where private individuals are buying stocks and assuming all the risk.
If you don't want to offer margin on virtual currency products, more power to you, that is your risk. But if customers are buying with cash, it seems pretty suspect for the bank to claim that is increasing the bank's risk exposure.
Honestly it wouldn't be the worst idea to have a "Net Neutrality" for brokers.
Knowing absolutely nothing about this particular situation I’d be willing to bet this decision is a lingering side effect of HSBC’s most recent (and seemingly perpetual) AML issues. I suspect they’re trying to appear squeaky clean and an action like this is quick, easy to implement operationally, and looks good to regulators who are uneasy about cryptocurrency’s reputation for facilitating criminal activity online.
They already have a version of Net Neutrality for brokers: reg NMS.
HSBC are well within their rights to refuse to accept bad orders. HSBC are exposed to specific regulatory risk not shared by US banks. Having a ton of customers go bust because a regulatory change nuked some meme stocks seems undesirable to me. If you don't like it you can always find another broker.
Maybe they have issues with people taking on a margin that they cannot afford? Cryptocurrencies being as volatile as they are shorting them on a margin can result in high losses that HSBC prefers not to be involved with? Just a guess.
If they're concerned about exposure, they could simply set the margin trading leverage below 1 (e.g. offering 0.1x leverage so that customers have to post $10 in margin to buy $1 in MicroStrategy shares).
> if customers are buying with cash, it seems pretty suspect for the bank to claim that is increasing the bank's risk exposure
Cash trades still expose brokers to volatility due to settlement.
This policy is likely one part regulatory theatre and one part customer selection. Customers buying MicroStrategy stock are unlikely to be lucrative customers for the banking products HSBC hocks.
Is there a good up-to-date resource for understanding the current premium that MSTR has over its BTC holdings? The article says: "MicroStrategy said last week it owns around 91,579 bitcoins. Its holdings, worth around $5.5 billion according to a Reuters calculation, are equal to around 80% of its $6.8 billion market capitalisation."
Naively, this would imply a fairly low premium. But among other things, this doesn't account for fact that Microstrategy took on a lot of debt to buy their bitcoins. Essentially, I'd like to see an updated and more complete analysis like this: https://old.reddit.com/r/microstrategy/comments/ltypps/sell_.... Does such a thing exist?
"Better" like Robinhood, which, instead of firmly stating a position in advance, changes its mind day-by-day about which stocks its customers can buy or sell? And which was pretty damn close to going bankrupt earlier this year because it didn't have a sufficient risk management policy?
>The bank said its policy towards cryptocurrencies had been in place since 2018 and is kept under review. It could not immediately say which countries the ban applied to.
My guess is that it's just some middle manager blindly following directives from 2018 that haven't been updated. I can't think of any other reason why they'd ban it when everyone else is moving in the opposite direction.
They're one of the most bureaucratic and inefficiently ran banks in existence, an absolute nightmare to deal with on every level. Not sure how they're still around, I wish they had been fined into oblivion after they were caught money laundering for narco traffickers.
My bet is that they are afraid of regulators fining them. The multi-billion dollar fines they received over the last few years constitutes a significant portion of their profits and has probably made them hyper-vigilant.
One of the unintended consequences of the Total Information Awareness / financial mass-surveillance AML/KYC movement is banks derisking at the expense of marginalized people and industries:
It seems like it's somebody's job to decide if MicroStrategy can lever up on Bitcoin but it shouldn't be individual brokers' jobs. Banks/brokers need to be neutral infrastructure. Their responsibility for AML should be to report suspicious behavior and no more; let regulators or law enforcement enforce the laws.
In related news, the bank will soon be renamed to HFSP Bank, in recognition of the crucial role it plays in reducing the risk of its clients making too much money.
> MicroStrategy said last week it owns around 91,579 bitcoins. Its holdings, worth around $5.5 billion according to a Reuters calculation, are equal to around 80% of its $6.8 billion market capitalisation.
Why would a software company buy this volume of this highly volatile crypto and put it on its balance sheet? Wouldn't the board object?
It's not HSBC's role to decide which things are pyramid schemes. SEC is for that, and they have made it very clear that neither Bitcoin or Ethereum are one.
[+] [-] Someone1234|4 years ago|reply
But you wouldn't be? This is a product literally called "InvestDirect" where private individuals are buying stocks and assuming all the risk.
If you don't want to offer margin on virtual currency products, more power to you, that is your risk. But if customers are buying with cash, it seems pretty suspect for the bank to claim that is increasing the bank's risk exposure.
Honestly it wouldn't be the worst idea to have a "Net Neutrality" for brokers.
[+] [-] elliekelly|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] revel|4 years ago|reply
HSBC are well within their rights to refuse to accept bad orders. HSBC are exposed to specific regulatory risk not shared by US banks. Having a ton of customers go bust because a regulatory change nuked some meme stocks seems undesirable to me. If you don't like it you can always find another broker.
[+] [-] niceairport|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the_local_host|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exit|4 years ago|reply
and/or we could tokenize securities onto permissionless and decentralised ledgers and stop feeding the intermediaries
note that a ledger with transaction validation rules which enforce KYC can still be permissionless and decentralised
bitcoin isn't "permissioned" just because you need a valid signature to spend an output
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|4 years ago|reply
Cash trades still expose brokers to volatility due to settlement.
This policy is likely one part regulatory theatre and one part customer selection. Customers buying MicroStrategy stock are unlikely to be lucrative customers for the banking products HSBC hocks.
[+] [-] petre|4 years ago|reply
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/14/hsbc-money-...
[+] [-] riffraff|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nkurz|4 years ago|reply
Naively, this would imply a fairly low premium. But among other things, this doesn't account for fact that Microstrategy took on a lot of debt to buy their bitcoins. Essentially, I'd like to see an updated and more complete analysis like this: https://old.reddit.com/r/microstrategy/comments/ltypps/sell_.... Does such a thing exist?
[+] [-] RoboTeddy|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] rawtxapp|4 years ago|reply
Pretty much the whole market has exposure to Bitcoin through SP500->Tesla at this point.
[+] [-] mullingitover|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xiphias2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] listenallyall|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gruez|4 years ago|reply
My guess is that it's just some middle manager blindly following directives from 2018 that haven't been updated. I can't think of any other reason why they'd ban it when everyone else is moving in the opposite direction.
[+] [-] fighterpilot|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CryptoPunk|4 years ago|reply
One of the unintended consequences of the Total Information Awareness / financial mass-surveillance AML/KYC movement is banks derisking at the expense of marginalized people and industries:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MakerDAO/comments/de0sys/kyc_is_abs...
[+] [-] wmf|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmtech|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmtech|4 years ago|reply
https://www.koined.store/collections/out-and-about/products/...
[+] [-] jdmg94|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] rchaud|4 years ago|reply
Why would a software company buy this volume of this highly volatile crypto and put it on its balance sheet? Wouldn't the board object?
[+] [-] randomopining|4 years ago|reply
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