PayPal extends crypto offerings to UK residents

Four months after rolling out its crypto buy, sell, and hold service to U.S. customers, PayPal has revealed that it will be expanding its crypto products to outside of the U.S. The next stop is the United Kingdom, which is expected to go live in a few months.

PayPal made the announcement during its investor day on Thursday.

Alongside the rollout in the UK, PayPal’s crypto as a funding service will also go live in a few months, while crypto offering in Venmo will launch in the first half of 2021.

According to Jonathan Auerbach, executive vice president and chief strategy, growth, and data officer at PayPal, the performance of the new product has “exceeded” expectations. This comes as no surprise considering the mass exodus of institutions and governments into the cryptocurrency space. The prevalent narrative is that digital assets are the future. Auerbach said:

We’re actually looking at our crypto services to help position PayPal, to help shape the role of cryptocurrencies and [central bank digital currencies] in consumer payments, commerce and financial services safely and securely… So early days for us here, but we’re moving rapidly.

PayPal reported an 11.8% increase in transaction revenue in its Q4 2020 earnings. Furthermore, customers who used its platform to buy crypto now log into PayPal twice as much.