Nordea Bank is dealing with some new criticism. The giant financial institution has previously decided to ban employees from owning cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. It now seems that this decision was not well received by workers and their unions.

Unions threaten with legal action over bitcoin ban

Unions representing workers employed by the bank were not happy at all with the decision made by Nordea. In fact, they claimed that the bank's stance on cryptocurrencies was only an "overreaction". Reportedly, the reason why the bank decided to ban its employees from owning bitcoin is linked to the fact that the cryptocurrency is not regulated.

Nordea Bank announced its decision to ban employees from owning cryptocurrencies in a memo that the bank has sent to its workers. The memo, which was shared to employees on January 22, revealed that workers are banned from both owing and trading in cryptocurrencies, and was shared with the entire workforce of the company.

The memo also indicated that this was a new company policy. All company workers were included, including bank staff, IT, cleaners and secretaries.

Nordea Bank has a total of 31,000 employees which had to comply with the prohibition of owning cryptocurrencies. The ban was to enter into effect on February 28. However, after sending the initial ban notice, the bank also clarified that employees who already own cryptocurrencies will not have to sale them.

The two trade unions representing employees at the bank said according to local media that employees should definitely not engage in illegal activities, but this is not the case of cryptocurrencies.

The unions said that they might file a lawsuit against the bank in case an employee is fired for challenging the ban.