Lloyds Banking Group bans customers from buying virtual currencies on credit cards

Interesting risk assessment - but surey they should be treating thus as quasi cash, in the same way as buying foreign currency and making a good return from the 3% cash advance fee they charge on their credit cards.

I agree with Paul's point; I think the only reason for not treating this as a  cash advance is that it suggests it is a currency, something being resisted by the authorities.

The other factor explaining a number of the banks' attack on cryptocurrencies is an attempt to link blockchain transactions as connected to the problem. The much lower costs of blockchain, particularly for international trades, is something banks wish to discourage, at least until they a get chance to catch up on the technology - which will probably take around five years in most cases. 

Back to Lloyds; the ban is solely (for now) on credit card transactions, not on debit cards, just to be clear on that.  

So Lloyds are saying that if customers spend to their credit limit to buy something (Crypto currency) they may not be able to afford to repay. Doesn't this suggest that they have set the credit limits wrong and that these all need to be reduced? They're not suggesting that crypto currencies are illegal or immoral (more usually used as reasons to prevent transactions) so it seems to me that they have their credit assesments wrong.

I don't think it's because of "afford to repay". One of the American banks has said BTC investments are heavily under water, so people may not be "willing to repay".

my sense is that settlement risk is also an issue given The extended timeline to complete a crypto transaction. A profile of cardholders purchasing crypto on their cards may reveal lower credit scores. Has Lloyd’s done this in the past for other high risk currencies?