Coinbase Opens A Banking Account At Barclays

Coinbase has announced that it is the first crypto exchange to obtain a U.K. bank account.

According to CNBC, the account is with Barclays.

Coinbase, which has nearly 12 million users, also announced it was granted an eMoney license by the U.K. regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

“The license will allow Coinbase to issue eMoney and provide payment services in the U.K.,” said CEO Zeeshan Feroz in a blog post. The license requires Coinbase’s eMoney operations to meet the strict rules enforced by the FCA and the Payment Services Directive. For our customers, this will ultimately help us deliver a better experience through new partnerships and an easier-to-use product.”

He added that the eMoney license will extend to 23 countries within the EU.

“We believe that this is an important step towards our commitment to making cryptocurrency accessible to everyone,” said Feroz.

In addition, the company revealed that is the first crypto exchange to support the U.K.’s Faster Payments Scheme, which will simplify the process of adding and withdrawing money from Coinbase. In the past, transactions in the U.K. were processed through an Estonian bank, which often took days to finalize.

“U.K. customers will benefit from faster, safer and seamless bank transfers. We will start with a pilot, giving a small number of institutional users access to Faster Payments. In the coming weeks, we will begin rolling out to all U.K. customers, making the Coinbase experience increasingly easier,” said Feroz.

Last year, the company saw its customer base in the EU grow twice as fast as any of its other markets — and the U.K. continues to be Coinbase’s largest market in the region.

“In order to meet this increasing demand, we plan to grow our London team 8x by the end of this year,” he said.