Coinbase states informal pressure from RBI prompted them to halt crypto trading in India

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has clarified that the company disabled its trading service in India due to informal pressure from the Reserve Bank of India.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Brain Armstrong said,

"there are elements in the government, including at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), who don’t seem to be as positive on it. Because of this pressure, popular cryptocurrency exchanges in India have had trouble supporting fiat currency in the nation."

On April 7, at an event in Bengaluru, Coinbase announced that it was working with India's bank regulators, and payment partners. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) released a statement the same night stating that it is "with reference to some recent media reports around the purchase of Cryptocurrencies using UPI, NPCI would like to clarify that we are not aware of any crypto exchange using UPI.”

Just three days after announcing the launch in India, the global crypto exchange had to halt UPI transactions on its app.

Earlier, on April 28, Brian Armstrong had questioned the informal restrictions on crypto trading by the RBI and the NPCI, and expressed that this was violating the Supreme Court ruling.

Following this incident, several banks disabled UPI possibilities for crypto-related payments. In 2021, banks including ICICI Bank and Paytm's Payments Bank suspended links with crypto exchanges.

The global crypto exchange is now planning to opt for alternative payment gateways and intends to relaunch in India.