Exchanges

Commonwealth Bank Crypto Rules & Bank Limits 2026

CBA's $10,000 monthly crypto cap, ANZ Crypto Protect, NAB and Westpac blocks: every major Australian bank's crypto transfer policy, verified June 2026.

YCG Research Desk

Published

12 June 2026

Fact-checked & updated

12 June 2026

Commonwealth Bank allows payments to crypto exchanges but may cap them at $10,000 per calendar month across all accounts, with 24-hour holds on some transfers. ANZ Plus blocks exchange payments by default, NAB and Westpac decline payments to unnamed “high-risk” platforms, and Macquarie blocks exchange BSB transfers outright. Every policy below was verified against bank sources in June 2026.

No Australian bank has banned buying crypto. What the majors have built instead is friction: monthly caps, default blocks, holds and questionnaires that sit between your account and the AUSTRAC-registered Australian crypto exchanges where most people buy. Knowing each bank’s published rules — and the scam losses driving them — saves failed payments and support calls.

Bank crypto policies compared (verified June 2026)

Bank	Published policy	Cap on payments to exchanges	Source, verified June 2026
Commonwealth Bank	Declines some payments; holds certain payments up to 24 hours	$10,000 per calendar month, all accounts combined; no exemption process	commbank.com.au support page
ANZ (ANZ Plus)	Crypto Protect blocks exchange payments by default; toggle off in-app	$10,000 per calendar month once Crypto Protect is disabled	anz.com.au support page
NAB	Declines payments to unnamed “high-risk” exchanges (cards, PayID, transfers) since 18 July 2023	No published cap	nab.com.au security page
Westpac	Blocks payments to certain high-risk digital exchanges; SaferPay questions on flagged payments	No cap published on westpac.com.au	Westpac media releases 2023–24
Macquarie	Blocks transfers to BSBs assessed as high-risk, predominantly exchange accounts; PayID may still work	BSB transfers blocked; no published cap on PayID	macquarie.com.au help page
Bendigo Bank	Blocks instant payments it assesses as high-risk to crypto exchanges (since July 2023)	Not published	bendigobank.com.au media centre
ING	No published crypto policy; industry guides report declines to some exchanges since April 2024	Not published	Third-party reports only
Up	No crypto-specific restrictions published in product documentation	Not published	up.com.au, checked June 2026
Revolut (AU)	In-app crypto trading under Revolut’s own terms — not a bank-to-exchange transfer	Not applicable	revolut.com/en-AU

Two things stand out. First, the two banks that publish a hard dollar figure — CBA and ANZ — both landed on $10,000 a month. Second, “high-risk exchange” is doing heavy lifting in most policies, and no bank names the platforms it blocks.

Commonwealth Bank crypto rules in detail

CBA’s policy, set out on its official cryptocurrency payments support page, has four moving parts:

A $10,000 monthly cap. CommBank may limit payments to accounts it believes are associated with crypto exchanges to no more than $10,000 in total from all your accounts each calendar month — transaction, savings and investment accounts combined. A customer who has sent $9,000 and attempts a further $1,500 in the same month will have that payment declined.
24-hour holds. The bank holds certain payments to crypto exchanges for up to 24 hours, regardless of amount. If you fund an exchange account with CBA, the AUD may not arrive same-day even via instant payment rails.
Outright declines. Some payments to exchanges are declined entirely, across online, branch and telephone banking. Declines trigger a NetBank message, email, SMS or app notification.
No exemptions. CBA states there is no process to apply for a higher monthly limit or an exemption. The cap is not negotiable for retail customers.

Withdrawals are the asymmetry worth noting: money coming from an exchange into a CommBank account is not affected. The friction applies only on the way in to crypto.

CBA justifies the policy with National Anti-Scam Centre data — its page cites $945.0 million lost to investment scams in 2024 — and says it sees a growing number of customers losing funds when scammers redirect “investment” deposits to crypto exchanges.

How ANZ, NAB and Westpac differ

ANZ Plus is the only major to block first and ask questions later. Its Crypto Protect setting is on by default and blocks any payment ANZ identifies as going to a crypto exchange. Customers who want to transact must disable it themselves (Profile, then Security, then Scam Safe in the app). Even then, a $10,000 calendar-month limit applies, unused allowance does not roll over, and each holder of a joint account gets a separate limit. Incoming payments from exchanges are generally permitted.

NAB publishes no dollar cap. Instead, since 18 July 2023 it declines payments to crypto exchanges it classes as high-risk — without naming them. A blocked NAB Visa card payment shows as “Issuer Declined Transaction”; a blocked PayID or funds transfer shows as “Rejected” in the app. NAB’s security page cites $19.5 million lost by Australians to crypto impersonation scams in the first half of 2025 alone. Withdrawals from exchanges to NAB accounts remain permitted.

Westpac began blocking payments to certain high-risk digital currency exchanges in a trial announced on 18 May 2023, noting at the time that investment scams accounted for about half of all scam losses and that a third of scam payments went straight to a crypto exchange. Since 26 March 2024 its SaferPay system also presents dynamic questions when a payment looks high-risk, and Westpac states it will not process a payment if the answers suggest a scam. Westpac publishes no monthly dollar cap on its website; some third-party guides report one, but it is not confirmed in any Westpac source we could verify in June 2026.

Macquarie, ING, Bendigo, Up and Revolut

Macquarie runs the strictest published policy of the banks reviewed here. Its help centre states it may block payments to BSBs it assesses as high-risk, “predominantly where they house accounts belonging to cryptocurrency exchanges”. In practice that shuts off standard BSB-and-account-number transfers to exchanges. Macquarie’s own page notes two carve-outs: PayID payments may go through where an exchange supports PayID, and receiving funds from exchange BSBs is allowed.

Bendigo Bank has blocked what it calls high-risk instant payments to crypto exchanges since July 2023, identifying them through a “combination of factors” it does not disclose. It has acknowledged the blocks will catch some genuine payments.

ING publishes no crypto policy page. Industry guides report that since April 2024 it has declined transfers to some exchanges without naming them, while transfers to other AUSTRAC-registered platforms continue to process. Treat ING’s position as undocumented and subject to change.

Up publishes no crypto-specific payment restrictions in its product documentation as of June 2026, and third-party guides consistently describe it as among the least restrictive options for funding exchanges. One structural note: Up operates under Bendigo and Adelaide Bank’s banking licence, the same group that blocks high-risk crypto payments on its main brand.

Revolut Australia is a different model altogether. Rather than transferring AUD to a third-party exchange, Revolut offers crypto buying and selling inside its own app under its own terms, with fees that vary by subscription plan plus a spread. That sidesteps the bank-blocking question, but in-app convenience pricing is generally dearer than the fee schedules on order-book exchanges — compare it against the platforms in our guide to how to buy crypto in Australia before assuming it is cheaper.

Why banks impose these limits

The banks’ stated rationale is scam disruption, and the data behind it is substantial. The National Anti-Scam Centre’s Targeting Scams report for 2025, released 30 March 2026, reports:

Measure (2025 calendar year)	Figure
Total reported scam losses, all sources	$2.18 billion (up 7.8% on 2024)
Investment scam losses (largest category)	$837.7 million
Losses paid via cryptocurrency/DCE (Scamwatch)	$121.3 million — the highest of any payment method
Losses paid via bank transfer (Scamwatch)	$118.1 million
Crypto ATMs operating in Australia	2,000+ in 2026, up from about 20 in 2019

2025 was the first year cryptocurrency overtook bank transfers as the payment method with the highest losses reported to Scamwatch. Scammers favour crypto because transfers are near-instant and effectively irreversible — the same properties that make exchanges impose their own withdrawal holds.

That context matters when weighing the inconvenience of a cap or hold. The friction is real, but so are the losses it is designed to interrupt. A 24-hour hold that delays a legitimate purchase is the same hold that gives a scam victim a window to stop a payment.

Working within the limits: the factual options

None of the following is a recommendation — they are the mechanics available, each with a cost:

PayID/Osko instead of BSB transfers. Macquarie’s block applies to BSB-based payments, and its own help page points to PayID as the channel that may still work. Most major Australian exchanges — including Swyftx, CoinSpot, Independent Reserve, Kraken, BTC Markets, Digital Surge, Coinbase and CoinJar — accept free PayID/Osko deposits (verified June 2026). Binance restored AUD PayID rails on 16 January 2026 after a debanking of roughly two and a half years. PayID does not bypass CBA or ANZ caps, which apply to any payment the bank identifies as going to an exchange.
Debit-card purchases. Card rails sometimes succeed where transfers are declined, but exchanges charge for them — around 1.22% at CoinSpot, 2% at BTC Markets and CoinJar, 3.99% at Coinbase — and NAB declines Visa card payments to its high-risk list anyway. See our breakdown of CoinSpot’s full fee schedule for what card convenience costs.
Spreading purchases across months. The CBA and ANZ caps reset each calendar month and unused allowance does not roll over. Larger purchases funded from those banks simply take longer.
Holding accounts at more than one bank. Some buyers keep an account at a bank without published caps purely for exchange funding. That is legal and common, but it removes the scam-protection frictions the capping banks cite — a trade-off, not a free lunch — and no bank guarantees its policy will not tighten without notice.

Whichever rail you use, the platform on the other end matters more than the bank: check the provider against the official register in our guide to AUSTRAC-registered exchanges in Australia. Registration with AUSTRAC is an anti-money-laundering obligation, not a licence or a government endorsement of the platform’s safety.

What the 2026 licensing reforms may change

The Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Act received Royal Assent on 8 April 2026 and commences on 9 April 2027, after which digital asset platforms above a $5,000-per-customer threshold will need an Australian Financial Services Licence, with a six-month transition. ASIC’s INFO 225 guidance (updated November 2025) and class no-action relief until 30 June 2026 cover providers that lodged AFSL applications and joined AFCA.

Treasury has framed the licensing regime partly as a response to debanking: banks have said it is hard to distinguish well-run platforms from high-risk ones when none are licensed. Whether the majors loosen caps once exchanges hold AFSLs is unknown — no bank has announced a policy change tied to the Act. The legal status of crypto itself is unchanged; our explainer on whether crypto is legal in Australia covers the current framework.

One thing bank policy does not change: tax. However the AUD gets to an exchange, disposals remain CGT events, and the ATO receives exchange data through its data-matching programme — the rules are set out in our guide to capital gains tax on crypto. For personal advice on either tax or whether crypto belongs in your circumstances at all, that is a matter for a registered tax agent or a licensed financial adviser, not your bank and not this page.

Common questions

Frequently asked questions

Does Commonwealth Bank allow crypto purchases?

Yes, with limits. CommBank states it may restrict payments to accounts it believes are associated with cryptocurrency exchanges to no more than $10,000 in total from all your accounts each calendar month, and it holds certain payments to exchanges for up to 24 hours. Some payments are declined entirely. Withdrawals from exchanges back into a CommBank account are not affected by these restrictions.

Can I increase the CommBank $10,000 crypto limit?

No. Commonwealth Bank states on its official cryptocurrency payments page that there is no process to apply for an increased monthly cryptocurrency payment limit or an exemption from the restrictions. The $10,000 cap applies in total across all of a customer's CommBank accounts, including transaction, savings and investment accounts, and resets each calendar month.

Which Australian banks block crypto exchange payments?

As of June 2026, Macquarie blocks transfers to BSBs it assesses as housing crypto exchange accounts, NAB and Westpac decline payments to unnamed high-risk exchanges, Bendigo Bank blocks payments it assesses as high-risk, and ANZ Plus blocks all exchange payments by default unless customers disable its Crypto Protect setting. CommBank declines some payments and caps the rest at $10,000 a month.

Why does my bank hold crypto payments for 24 hours?

Banks apply holds as a scam-disruption measure. Commonwealth Bank, for example, holds certain payments to cryptocurrency exchanges for up to 24 hours regardless of the amount, citing growing customer losses to investment scams. The National Anti-Scam Centre's Targeting Scams report shows cryptocurrency was the payment method with the highest reported Scamwatch losses in 2025, at $121.3 million.

What is ANZ Crypto Protect?

Crypto Protect is a security setting on ANZ Plus accounts that is switched on by default and blocks payments ANZ identifies as going to crypto exchanges. Customers can disable it in the app under Profile, Security, then Scam Safe. Once disabled, payments to crypto exchanges are still limited to $10,000 each calendar month, and unused limit does not roll over to the next month.

Which banks are least restrictive for crypto transfers?

As of June 2026, Up publishes no crypto-specific payment restrictions in its product documentation, and ING publishes no formal crypto policy, though industry guides report ING has declined transfers to some exchanges since April 2024. Policies change without notice, and a less restrictive bank also means fewer of the scam-protection frictions the major banks cite as the reason for their limits.

Can a bank close my account for buying crypto?

Banks set their own terms of service and can decline transactions or exit customers under those terms, a practice known as debanking. Australian exchanges, including Binance Australia, have themselves lost banking access in the past. The Digital Assets Framework Act, which received Royal Assent on 8 April 2026, brings platforms into the AFSL regime from April 2027, which Treasury has said is intended to improve banking confidence in the sector.

Sources & further reading