Indian Crypto Exchange Adds Bank Transfers Hours After RBI Ban Lifted

An Indian cryptocurrency exchange has added support for bank account transfers, hours after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was forced to lift its cryptocurrency ban.

Mumbai-based CoinDCX announced Wednesday that users can now purchase cryptocurrencies with the Indian rupee, as the exchange became the first platform in India to fully integrate bank account transfers.

The integration came less than six hours after the Supreme Court of India ruled against a 2018 ban imposed by the RBI, which banned domestic financial institutions from providing banking services to cryptocurrency companies.

Anirudh Rastogi, the founder and managing partner of Ikigai Law, the law firm that filed the original petition on behalf of CoinDCX and other exchanges, commented that the judges' decision was made on the grounds there was little evidence to suggest cryptocurrencies posed a threat to the banking system.

The RBI ban was deemednot to be "proportionate to the risk sought to be addressed by such ban," Rastogi said.

In a statement, CoinDCX co-founder and Chief Executive Sumit Gupta said the court verdict would likely be the catalyst for a "transformation" in the Indian cryptocurrency industry.

A banking integration was the exchange's "first priority" now that Indian citizens could once again invest in digital assets, Gupta said.

"With renewed accessibility and convenience in purchasing cryptocurrencies, we believe that this change will have a dramatic effect in accelerating crypto adoption in India," Gupta said.

It's unclear whether the banking integration means CoinDCX has struck up a partnership with an Indian financial institution. The exchange did not immediately return requests for comment.