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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.
Almost all bad things in this world are done "for protection" of some groups of people. Some times they go so far as saying that it's "for protection of all people in the world". Well, f*ck that. We should know by now what that really means.