On October 11, Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) became one of just a handful of companies to have received an e-money license in Ireland. In a blog post, the San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange will now be able to provide services to customers across Europe. This will occur regardless of whether Brexit is finally achieved in England or not.
This approval by the Central Bank of Ireland is the second such license that Coinbase has received in Europe. The other came in March 2018 when they received an e-money license from the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The combination of the two licenses gives the company the ability to deal with customers in all countries in Europe, regardless of whether those countries are part of the European Union or not. That should give the exchange a huge advantage over virtually all of their competitors.
In a statement, Zeeshan Feroz, who is the CEO of Coinbase in the U.K., explained in regards to Brexit, “Europe represents a huge opportunity for Coinbase and today’s announcement is another positive step for us in the region. The approval from the Central Bank of Ireland will now enable us to expand our Irish operation and deliver a better product to customers across some of our fastest-growing markets. It will also allow us to secure passporting for our customers across the EU and EEA.”
In a letter, IDA CEO Martin Shanahan congratulated Coinbase, saying, “Coinbase’s choice of Dublin for this operation reinforces the strength of Ireland as a destination for financial services companies, providing a consistent, certain, pro-enterprise policy environment for businesses to grow and thrive.” The IDA is the state agency in Ireland responsible for attracting foreign investment.
Ireland may become the next big crypto hub. They have been quite successful in attracting huge tech giants, such as Facebook, Google, and Apple through tax programs. This appears to be one of the primary reasons why Coinbase wanted to operate here. Not only are the regulation and tax laws friendly toward crypto exchange services, but having these huge corporations in their own backyard can only help to boost their success.
Even with all of this available to Coinbase, they still wanted to assure customers that they would protect their financial investments and information. “We are committed to ensuring that our customers have the same safeguarding and security as any regulated financial institution, and the approval of a second European regulatory authority demonstrates our position as the world’s most trusted cryptocurrency platform.”
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