why does the bank ask if I have crypto activities

The bank checks crypto activity as a money laundering risk

The bank asks this because cryptocurrencies represent a heightened risk indicator for it within the client due diligence required under the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Prevention) Act (Wwft). If a company itself trades in crypto, receives payments in crypto or holds crypto for third parties, the bank must factor this into the customer's risk classification. This often leads to a separate question in the questionnaire, distinct from the usual questions about the source of the company's assets.

What is important is the distinction between three situations: the company itself trades in crypto as part of its business operations, the company accepts crypto as a payment method from customers, or there is no crypto activity whatsoever. For each of these situations, a different answer is correct — entering "no" because it is not a core activity, while crypto is occasionally invoiced, is incomplete. If the company has no documentation or policy on crypto because the subject never arose, then "no, not applicable" is the factually correct answer — not something that needs to be supplemented with an explanation that does not exist. Evidence that the bank may request in this regard is a crypto policy, an overview of wallet addresses or a declaration from the exchange platforms used; without such a document in the file, the system cannot suggest a "yes" here.

Origin from the Wwft, not from the CSRD

This question comes from the client due diligence of the Wwft, not from sustainability reporting under the CSRD (Directive 2022/2464) — these two are sometimes accidentally mixed in questionnaires, but the crypto question belongs to the former. It usually appears separately from questions about the ultimate beneficial owners of the company, even if the bank places them in the same section.