To what extent to bitcoin exchanges need banking liscences? Do they store money in their own vaults like a regular bank or do they use other banks to store money and only act like a bank?
At present it's the later, there's no crypto exchange I know of that handles its own fiat banking services. That's why many exchanges have gone out of business as a result of their bank deciding to close their account so that they can no longer do fiat transfers. An exchange with its own banking capabilities would be immune from this sort of sucker punch.
That's interesting. I never realized that banks would actually just close up to a organization because they were dealing with bitcoin. Are they often because of bitcoins shady uses? Or is it some government regulation? Or were they simply not following proper tax/banking practices?