Capital Investment Groups Block Attempt at Bitcoin Adoption on Isle of Man

It was just a few months ago that the Isle of Man announced their plans to become a haven for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. There is little doubt that the Island’s government hoped to establish them in the cryptocurrency sector in much the same way as countries with lax banking laws in the Caribbean had captured so much of the financial sector. This plan seems to have hit a major roadblock however after Capital Treasury Services, part of the Capital International Group’s financial empire, announced that as of next month they would no longer be doing business with digital currency businesses.
This is an especially interesting development considering that the government has been vocal about their support for digital currencies. The Isle of Man is a self-governing British dependency and in March of 2014 its Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) ruled the many of the island’s licensing laws did not apply to Bitcoin, which of course opened up a flood of interest from the Bitcoin community and speculation about new investment opportunities.
The Capital Treasury Group is part of Capital Group which is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. The company has more than 7,000 employees located in 23 offices and includes mutual funds such as American Funds and Capital International Funds. The company also acts as money manager for several governments. CTS has been offering banking for the Isle of Man digital currency organizations for some time now and also held funds for clients who were involved with Bitcoin. But now CTS is claiming that it experienced negative influence from its banking partners with regard to Bitcoin, including HSBC and RBS. Such pressure from institutions forced CTS to ban services for all companies involved with digital currencies.

This post was published at Coin Telegraph on 2014-09-17.