Crypto trading comes to UK’s TransferGo payment platform

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TransferGo, a world remittance company based out of the United Kingdom, has made the smart decision to join the cryptocurrency space. As reported by Bloomberg, the company could be the first remittance operator in the world to offer a crypto trading solution.

The platform’s clients are now able to trade in five of the world’s top cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin Cash (BCH), BTC, Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP) and Litecoin (LTC). According to TransferGo founder and CEO Daumantas Dvilinskas, the company broke into the industry due to customer demand and has already seen significant success. He said that more than 4,000 users signed up for the service within the first few hours after the platform was launched, noting, “…we can see there is a strong demand in the market for a simple and reliable investment and trading solution.”

Dvilinskas pointed out that the company isn’t ready to start allowing cryptocurrency remittances yet. The company will only offer the trading desk for now. He sees the importance of crypto for the future and asserted that, “…as a platform, [crypto] is here to stay.”

The success of the new offering smacks hard against the opinion of MasterCard CEO Ajaypal Banga, who last week called cryptocurrencies “junk.” He scoffed at the “wild volatility” of digital currencies, asserting that they shouldn’t be deemed a medium of exchange. Given the extensive acceptance of crypto around the world—and its growing preference as a payment mechanism—Banga’s comments can only be taken with a grain of salt (and it’s a very small one grain).

TransferGo was founded in 2012. Since then, it has grown substantially to now have more than 600,000 registered users. It is also partnered with 30 different banks, facilitating international money transfers around the globe. The company offers a fixed transfer rate of less than €1 (around $1.16) and exchange rate markups of between 0.2% and 1.8%.

The move to offer crypto trading mirrors a similar decision taken in June by Qiwi, a Russian fiat payment service provider. Qiwi’s Qiwi Blockchain Technologies recently introduced an investment for cryptocurrencies called HASH, and is planning on launching crypto trading services in 2019 once it receives its licenses.