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PayPal’s Crypto Offering Reaches UK, Powered by Paxos
PayPal will allow its British customers to buy, hold, and sell digital assets as soon as this week.
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Online payment giant PayPal aims to expand its crypto offering to the UK, allowing British customers to buy, hold, and sell digital assets as soon as this week. This marks the first step in the company’s ambitious goal to bring crypto services to more geographies.
It is worth mentioning that this expansion comes at a time when the regulatory scrutiny around digital assets is at its peak. However, with the regulated nature of Paxos, the company has a good chance of avoiding regulatory troubles.
PayPal Expands Crypto Services to UK
The American multinational online payments giant, PayPal, has unveiled that it will allow its British customers to buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrencies. The new crypto service, which is powered by Paxos, will be available starting this week.
PayPal first dabbled into the world of digital assets in October of 2020, by allowing U.S. customers to trade select crypto assets. In late March 2021, the company unrolled its crypto checkout, further incentivizing users to hold digital assets. In July, during its Q2 earnings call, the company hinted at the possibility of bringing crypto to the UK for the first time.
Jose Fernandez da Ponte, general manager at PayPal, asserted that the company has been doing really well with crypto services in the US, and expects to do well in the UK as well. He said:
“We are very deliberate about starting with initial functionality, and then we’ll see where the market is going to take us. Different markets have different appetite for products.”
As of now, PayPal supports four of the most popular digital currencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. However, the company intends to expand its range of products. “We definitely have ambitions to continue to expand the product range in the U.S., the U.K., and other markets,” said da Ponte.
Despite having dozens of serious competitors worldwide, PayPal has managed to remain the top global payment gateway since its inception. Currently, it is estimated that PayPal has over 400 million users worldwide, increasing by 16% in Q2 2021 on a YOY basis.
Paxos: A Completely Regulated FinTech Platform
Crypto has been witnessing worldwide regulatory pressure lately. In July, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen asked lawmakers to quickly establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins. This trend has even extended to crypto firms, with Binance and BlockFi facing numerous investigations by regulatory bodies.
However, courtesy of its standardized approach, Paxos has been miles away from regulatory troubles. So much so that it is acknowledged as one of the most regulated FinTech platforms, operating as a permissioned rail between legacy finance and crypto.
Paxos, which powered PayPal’s crypto service for the US, will also power the company’s crypto offering for UK customers. In terms of technology, Paxos Crypto Brokerage provides crypto custody for PayPal, allowing the company to offer crypto services seamlessly using its app.
Paxos has a regulation-first approach when dealing with the largely unregulated crypto market. This regulated nature of Paxos is expected to keep PayPal far away from any regulatory pressure, providing the firm an edge over competitors that are under investigation by regulatory authorities.
Do you think Paxful’s regulated approach would give PayPal an edge over competitors? Let us know in the comments below.
Tim Fries
Tim Fries is the cofounder of The Tokenist. He has a B. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a Senior Associate on the investment team at RW Baird's US Private Equity division, and is also the co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, protection and control solutions.
