Paypal Crypto is Available to U.K. Customers!

The payments giant announced in a recent statement that the rollout of the company’s crypto offering in the U.K. is complete. The rollout started at the end of August 2021 after announcing the launch of the international expansion.

The official account of the U.K. branch of Paypal Inc. tweeted: “We are delighted to share that all eligible customers in the U.K. can now buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies bitcoin, ethereum, bitcoin cash & litecoin from their Paypal account.”

The payments giant’s website states that the crypto offering in the U.K. is provided by a credit institution named Paypal (Europe) S.à r.l. Et Cie, S.C.A. The credit institution is supervised by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier, the financial regulator of Luxembourg. However, no regulator, including the Financial Conduct Authority (F.C.A.) in the U.K., regulates the crypto service.

In the following statement, Paypal elaborates:

“You can buy, sell and hold cryptocurrency through Paypal’s cryptocurrency service, but you can’t use it to send cryptocurrency. In addition, purchases and sales of cryptocurrency aren’t reversible and cannot be changed.”

Despite the statement, the payments giant also stated in May that it aims to enable cryptocurrency transfers to third-party digital wallets.

Paypal Inc. further stated that the U.K. launch “marks the first international expansion of the company’s cryptocurrency offering outside of the United States.”

Paypal reported in October 2020 that it was initiating a crypto offering in the U.S. to enable “its millions of U.S. customers to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies.” According to the payments giant, the firm’s platform is available in more than 200 markets, working for over 400 million merchants and customers. The cryptocurrency service of the company is made possible thanks to a collaboration with Paxos Trust Company, which is a technological firm specialized in blockchain and a financial institution based in New York.

In March 2021, Paypal introduced “Checkout with Crypto.” In April, the company presented a crypto offering on Venmo, the firm’s mobile payment service. Lastly, in July, the payments giant revealed its goal to expand crypto offerings internationally and thus hire more than 100 cryptocurrency positions.

The venture capital arm of the payments giant has recently invested in crypto startups and blockchain. The crypto startups in which Paypal invested include institutional-grade crypto infrastructure technology Talos, crypto tax program provider TaxBit, and cryptocurrency risk management company T.R.M. Labs.