Paypal to Expand Its Crypto Services Offering to the UK

Paypal’s cryptocurrency services are coming to the United Kingdom, as the digital payments giant is now targeting non-U.S. countries. Buy, sell and hold digital asset products could be available for Paypal’s U.K. customers in “a number of months.”

Results With the Paypal Crypto Services Have ‘Exceeded’ Expectations in the US

During Paypal’s Investor Day 2021 event, Jonathan Auerbach, executive chief strategy and growth officer at the digital payments firm, unveiled plans of deploying the crypto services in the region.

According to the executive, the crypto product has surpassed Paypal’s expectations in the United States. In October 2020, the firm announced customers could buy, sell and hold bitcoin and other virtual coins with the company’s online wallets.

One month later, during an earnings call, Paypal said that “all eligible Paypal account holders in the U.S.” could access the service. The crypto service supports bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), bitcoin cash (BCH), and litecoin (LTC).

Auerbach added the following comment in the Investor Day event:

We’re actually looking at our crypto services to help position Paypal, to help shape the role of cryptocurrencies and CBDCs in consumer payments, commerce, and financial services safely and securely.

He added that although “so early days for us here, but we’re moving rapidly.”

Paypal to Launch a Dedicated Crypto Business Unit

During the event, Paypal also announced that Venmo, a payment app acquired by the company in 2014, is set to enable its crypto feature in the first semester of 2021. Moreover, the digital payments giant is expected to allow its user to shop with cryptos later this year.

The company’s plans with cryptocurrencies seem to be ambitious. As news.Bitcoin.com reported on February 3, 2021, Daniel Schulman, Paypal’s CEO, commented that the firm is set to launch a new crypto business unit later this quarter.

He commented on how Paypal is betting firmly on the crypto business:

We are significantly investing in our new crypto, blockchain, and digital currencies business unit in order to help shape this more inclusive future.