Cryptocurrency app Luno has fallen foul of the UK’s promoting watchdog for “deceptive” posters displayed at bus and Underground stations in London.
Adverts with the slogan “When you’re seeing Bitcoin on the Underground, it’s time to purchase” have been ubiquitous in Tube stations and on the facet of London buses, a tangible signal of the latest surge in reputation of cryptocurrencies with retail traders.
However the Promoting Requirements Authority (ASA) stated on Wednesday the adverts underplayed the dangers of investing in unstable and largely unregulated digital belongings like Bitcoin.
The choice on complaints over how cryptocurrencies are marketed to the general public comes as UK monetary regulators are carefully eyeing the dangers that digital belongings pose for personal traders.
“We concluded that the advert irresponsibly steered that partaking in Bitcoin funding by Luno was easy and straightforward, notably on condition that the viewers it addressed, most people, had been prone to be inexperienced of their understanding of cryptocurrencies,” the ASA stated.
Luno has promoted its platform as a straightforward and safe choice for people trying to purchase cryptocurrencies, together with Bitcoin and Ether.
The promoting marketing campaign fashioned a part of an enormous push by the London-based firm, which was purchased by the Digital Forex Group final yr, to spice up its buyer base within the UK. Fewer than 200,000 of the app’s 7m customers are situated within the UK, the corporate stated in April.
Luno’s marketing campaign bumped into bother with the promoting business’s self-regulatory physique over complaints that it had “didn’t illustrate the chance of the funding” and “took benefit of shoppers’ inexperience or credulity”.
Susannah Streeter, senior funding and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, stated that corporations providing cryptoassets to the general public had been coming underneath rising scrutiny from UK regulators, together with the Monetary Conduct Authority.
The FCA warned in January that traders in cryptocurrencies “must be ready to lose all their cash”. The monetary watchdog has additionally banned the sale of cryptocurrency derivatives and exchange-traded notes to retail traders.
“The Promoting Requirements Authority is one other regulator with crypto in its sights, able to censure extra corporations in the event that they don’t follow strict codes of conduct,” Streeter stated.
In a response revealed by the ASA, Luno stated the adverts wouldn’t seem once more in the identical kind and that future advertisements would carry danger warnings.
The ASA stated it had instructed Luno “to make sure that their future advertising and marketing communications made sufficiently clear that the worth of investments in Bitcoin was variable” and that each Luno and Bitcoin markets weren’t regulated.
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