Yup. BitCoin is actually the currency, but companies conducting banking operations with it are subject to financial regulation of banks. Look at BitInstant. Dudes didn't follow financial regulations written for traditional currencies when conducting transactions, so Charlie Shrem and Robert Faiella got arrested.
That's what a lot of the money handling regulations are about. Hence why you need to declare when you're going through an airport with more than 10k of currency (USD, AUD, etc).
Iceland (where CCP is) treats Bitcoin as a foreign currency, actually. Which the means they've outlawed buying/selling BTC entirely, since all foreign currencies are restricted under the capital controls.
A crypto currency isn't a bank, but people that exchange crypto-currencies for money and back again are subject to financial regulations in most countries. For example, in the US I don't think that they would be considered 'banks,' but they would still be subject to Federal regulations. The point being that if you can convert back and forth you can use it as a way to launder money, so the government forces the exchange to have some sort of 'know your client' procedures in place.
um... isn't every crypto-currency a bank then?