With around 403 million active accounts globally, the San Jose, California-based company is one of the biggest mainstream financial companies to confer consumers’ access to cryptocurrencies. PayPal introduced cryptocurrency exchange through buying and selling in the United States earlier this year, later sanctioning customers to access their digital coin holdings to shop at the millions of merchants on its network.
“We are committed to continuing working closely with regulators in the UK, and around the world, to offer our support— and meaningfully contribute to shaping the role digital currencies will play in the future of global finance and commerce,” Jose Fernandez da Ponte, vice president and general manager for blockchain, crypto and digital currencies at PayPal, said in a statement.
In the UK, PayPal’s service competitors are cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase Global Inc, also fintech startups like Revolut. Customers can now easily purchase bitcoin: ether, litecoin and bitcoin cash through their respective PayPal wallets online or on the mobile app available in Play Store.
The decision arrives as more established financial companies have incorporated the exchange procedure by offering their clients, both consumers and institutions, ethical access to digital assets like bitcoins, amidst the jump in cryptocurrency prices.