I have been asked this question several times in the past month and here's my reply. From a couple of sources in the industry this is what I've learnt over a month ago. It was also when many Indian cryptocurrency exchanges stopped processing direct INR deposits and withdrawals.
Some of the banks have indeed directed their branches to suspend accounts of cryptocurrency exchanges. However, many banks including top banks public and private sector both have not issued any strict directions to this effect.
The internal policy hasn't changed for a few banks. Since RBI hasn't imposed any harsh penalties on banks over rendering services to cryptocurrency exchanges, many banks are providing services at their discretion. However, I would avoid banks like Kotak Mahindra, Citi for crypto related transactions to avoid running into problems.
Then why did exchanges stop?
It's because many people; exchange owners and users have asked the same question. To avoid any issues with the government, many exchanges decided to comply themselves by stopping their transactions even when there wasn't any pressure for them to do so.
Giottus, PocketBits and Oxybits are the 3 exchanges providing withdrawal services today.
RBI's mandate does prevent banks from rendering services but it seems some of them feel differently about it. I'm trying to find out more about this to see if exchanges are doing anything different now. But this is the update that I have as far as this topic is concerned.
For everyone who doesn't care about these services, you can use P2P modules on the rest of the exchanges and carry out your trades.
Personally I've always enjoyed using spot exchanges with direct INR deposit/withdrawal features. However I will be using a mix of P2P and spot and then finalise on one aspect moving forward.
Hopefully we'll get a pro-crypto-trading legislation enabling this all of this at scale in the future.
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