Abra partners with Plaid to connect US users and banks

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Abra, a mobile crypto wallet and investment app, has partnered up with Plaid, a fintech firm allowing bank withdrawals of cryptocurrencies, to enable users in the United States to convert U.S. dollar (USD) to crypto and transfer funds to the Abra app.

In the official announcement, Abra stated that its partnership with Plaid would enable users to connect with thousands of banks in the U.S. seamlessly. Before this, users in the U.S. and the European Union were only able to fund their wallets through bank transfers. This partnership will see to it that users and banks are connected for faster funding processes.

While commenting on this new partnership, Bill Barhydt, the CEO and founder of Abra stated:

“With today’s announcement, Abra is taking yet another step closer toward our vision of democratizing access to financial services for our hundreds of thousands of customers around the globe. The addition of these new liquidity enhancements in our app gives users more ways to move between crypto and fiat. We’re particularly excited about our partnership with Plaid, which brings thousands of new financial institutions into the Abra ecosystem for US customers.”

Paul Williamson, head of sales at Plaid, added that this new feature would present consumers with more opportunities to invest their funds. He noted, “Consumers need to be able to invest their money wherever they choose, regardless of where they bank.”

Abra has expanded native withdrawal supports allowing over 30 cryptocurrencies. The platform also enables withdrawals to a hardware wallet. The announcement read:

“The new withdrawal capability is now live for 0x (ZRX), Augur (REP), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Dash (DASH), Digibyte (DGB), Doge (DOGE), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Golem (GNT), Lisk (LSK), Neo (NEO), OmiseGo (OMG), Qtum (QTUM), Status (SNT), Stratis (STRAT), Tron (TRN), Vertcoin (VTC), and Zcash (ZEC).”

Additionally, the Abra also announced that it had added 16 cryptocurrencies on the platform. Reportedly, these cryptocurrencies will become the first digital assets to be offered on Abra in their native form after the first addition of Bitcoin Cash (BCHABC), Bitcoin Core (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC). Adding these cryptocurrencies in their native form replaces the earlier derivatives that are pegged to the price through smart contracts.

More changes are yet to come as hinted by Willie Wang, the vice president of product at Abra, who stated that the platform would soon expand to offer support for crypto deposits.