All banks should have some sort of reference to The Dark One in their name if you ask me.  And if I'm not mistaken, Santander may be a Spanish bank, but they have branches in the US all over the place.  I've seen them and never realized they were global.

I'm not buying the "it's for your protection" argument here, as people get scammed with fiat constantly through all sorts of methods, whether it's the old Nigerian prince kind or pretty much any other scheme you can think of.  My guess is that Santander didn't decide this on their own, but rather had it suggested to them by some government agency that hasn't officially regulated cryptocurrency yet.  Banks and government have always been in bed together, so that wouldn't surprise me in the least.