U.S. Bancorp will not allow customers to purchase virtual currency using its credit cards, a spokesperson said June 7.

The superregional bank told S&P Global Market Intelligence that it will no longer process any transactions with identified cryptocurrency dealers. The U.S. Bank spokesperson said the decision was made to protect customer accounts and hedge the "high risk associated with these anonymous [cryptocurrency] exchanges."

Other large U.S. banks have halted cryptocurrency purchases on their credit cards, among them JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp.

Bankers have expressed concern about the decentralized nature of cryptocurrency exchanges, which makes it difficult for compliance teams to verify that lines of credit are not being used for activity that would violate Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering laws.