PayPal encryption service is launched in the UK

LONDON – PayPal launches its cryptocurrency service in the UK

The American online payment giant said on Monday it would allow British customers to buy, hold and sell digital currencies from this week.

This is the first international expansion of PayPal’s cryptographic product, which launched in the United States in October last year.

“It has gone very well in the United States,” Jose Fernandez da Ponte, general manager of blockchain, cryptography and digital currencies at PayPal, told CNBC. “We hope it goes well in the UK”

PayPal’s encryption feature allows customers to buy or sell bitcoins, bitcoins, etherum or litecoin cash for just 1 GBP. Users can also track cryptography prices in real time and find educational content on the market.

Like the US version of the product, PayPal relies on Paxos, a regulated digital currency company in New York, to enable the purchase and sale of cryptography in the UK.

A spokesman for the Financial Conduct Authority, the UK financial services watchdog, was not immediately available to comment on the announcement.

PayPal’s encryption service is similar to that of the British fintech firm Revolut. As is the case with Revolut, PayPal users cannot move their cryptocurrencies out of the app. Although Revolut recently began testing a feature that allows users to withdraw bitcoin from their own personal wallets.

PayPal claims that its foray into cryptography is about facilitating people’s participation in the market. “Tokens and coins have been around for a while, but you had to be a relatively sophisticated user to be able to access them,” da Ponte said. “Having it on a platform like ours is a very good entry point.”

The payment processor is one of the big financial companies that makes a leap into the world of cryptocurrencies, mostly unregulated. Despite constant concerns about price volatility, consumer protection and the possible money laundering in the industry, major companies such as Mastercard, Tesla and Facebook are recently heating up in crypto.

Bitcoin, the world’s largest digital currency, hit a record high of nearly $ 65,000 in April before falling below $ 30,000 in July as Chinese regulators spread repression into the market. It has since recovered to a price of $ 48,400.

Although PayPal started with cryptocurrency, the company bets that digital currencies will play a more important role in e-commerce in the long run. Earlier this year, PayPal began allowing U.S. consumers to use cryptography to pay millions of its online merchants around the world. The firm also expanded the buying and selling of cryptography to Venmo, its popular mobile wallet.

“We definitely have ambitions to continue to expand the product range in the US, UK and other markets,” Da Ponte said.

“We’re very deliberate on how to start with the initial functionality, and then we’ll see where the market will take us. Different markets have different product desires.”

The launch of PayPal’s crypto service in the UK is also coming as regulators are increasingly concerned about the rise of digital currencies. In June, the FCA banned the British subsidiary of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, alleging that money laundering requirements were not met.

“It makes sense that as consumer interest increases and volume increases, regulators are paying more attention to this space,” Da Ponte said, adding that PayPal has established “solid regulatory relationships.”

Meanwhile, central banks are exploring the possible issuance of their own digital currencies, as cash use in several developed countries is declining rapidly. In April, the UK Treasury and the Bank of England said they would assess the possible launch of a digital version of the British pound, called “Britcoin” by the British press.

Da Ponte said central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, were a “fantastic prospect,” but that policymakers would take a while to resolve the key issues involved.