After a slow rollout last month, PayPal’s Bitcoin trading services are now fully operational in the United Kingdom.
On Friday, PayPal announced that all eligible users in the United Kingdom can now use their PayPal accounts to purchase, hold, and sell cryptocurrencies.
Customers can exchange Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. As previously stated, only PayPal clients with verified identities will be able to trade cryptocurrency.
PayPal revealed its intention to enter the British cryptocurrency market in late August, and began rolling out crypto trading services in stages. PayPal’s cryptocurrency services will now be available outside of the US for the first time.
“PayPal progressively handed out its new crypto service to its UK customers,” a PayPal official told Cointelegraph in an interview. “That procedure is finished,” he adds.
“We are keen to learn and observe how our customers use our buy, hold and sell crypto offering before we start to roll out more features and functionality.“
PayPal’s entry into the local crypto industry comes at a time when several British banks are blocking off payment routes to exchanges. HSBC, the world’s largest bank, announced in August that it was stopping credit card payments to Binance due to “concerns about prospective dangers” to its customers.
Other banks, such as Barclays and NatWest, had previously barred Binance transactions.
According to Gregory Klumov, CEO of tokenization firm Stasis, PayPal’s British crypto launch is a “breath of fresh air.” “Since the country is in the world’s top 10 economies, such a milestone will clearly drive the continued adoption of digital assets in Europe and beyond,” he said.
