List of banks and credit card companies that have banned purchases of Bitcoin and other cryptos with credit cards

You may have noticed that since the big Bitcoin boom at the end of 2017 the crypto market has come under increasing scrutiny - with the inevitable result of knee-jerk reactions and clampdowns of various types.

One that might have impacted you already is the growing list of banks, credit card companies and other financial organisations that have banned purchases of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies or digital currencies with their credit cards.

At time of writing this list includes:

UK
Lloyds Banking Group (includes Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland, Halifax and MBNA)
Virgin Money

USA
Bank of America
Citigroup
JP Morgan
Capital One
Discover

Canada
Scotiabank

The rationale is that the banks are: "concerned about customers running up large debts following a sharp fall in the value of digital currencies". I think this concern can be read as the banks being worried that they might get bad publicity for the debts - after all, they don't stop their customers gambling or buying alcohol or cigarettes with their credit cards and they have a long history of encouraging customers to borrow and spend money they can't afford to pay back. Perhaps that's just me being cynical though. Others suspect even more Machiavellian motives and that they're doing it to protect their status against an emerging threat.

Let me know if there are any other banks that need to be added to the list.

Note - with the exception of Citigroup, this ban applies to credit cards only, not debit cards.