Coinbase Lets You Buy Bitcoin (BTC) and Altcoins with British Pounds (GBP)

San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is now offering support for British pounds (GBP).

Hi Traders,

UK-based crypto traders can now enjoy a new service. The Californian cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase was excited to announce on Thursday the new update on its platform. According to the blog post, the company is now accepting British pounds for deposits and withdrawals. The new service targets primarily active traders – Coinbase Pro as well as institutions – Coinbase Prime.

Until today, UK-traders had to convert pounds into euro and reverse while transactions were processed in more than one day. With the new service, this will no longer be a barrier to crypto holders. These now have the opportunity to enjoy the same services at a processing time of up to 24 hours and low costs using their bank accounts.

Faster payments will benefit all UK customers, enabling almost immediate high-limit transfers, essential for @CoinbasePro and Coinbase Prime (institutional) customers who will now be able to enter and exit their positions quickly.

— Coinbase 🛡️ (@coinbase) August 1, 2018

Speaking about the move, Coinbase UK CEO Zeeshan Feroz, claimed:

“UK banks have been conservative in terms of working with crypto businesses, and we’re proud to be one of the first companies to get access to domestic banking.”

Coinbase to release new trading pairs

At the time of writing, the new service is available only to some of the platform’s customers, as the global launch will follow in the coming weeks.

Moreover, in the near future, the company plans to introduce new trading pairs, such as GBP/BTC and GBP/ETH. Among the benefits of launching the new service, the Californian crypto exchange expects a larger volume of transactions as well as an expanded customer database following that more UK-based citizens will choose Coinbase instead of its competitors.

In addition to accepting British pounds, Coinbase manages to integrate perfectly into British national regulations. Recently, the US-based company has obtained an e-money license issued by the British regulator body – the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Furthermore, Coinbase became the first cryptocurrency trading platform to own a bank account in the UK.

Even more, Coinbase has teamed up with British company WeGift to release an e-gift card program that offers crypto holders based in Australia and EU countries the possibility to transform their crypto-powered funds into e-gift cards, used to pay on the famous retail website such as Uber, Amazon.

Author: Adriana Midrigan