Following its acquisition of a registered firm, JNK Securities, The Digital money platform Uphold is now officially a licensed broker-dealer in the United States of America.

As reported by Coindesk, commenting on the move, Ben Sherwin, the General counsel for Uphold, went on to state, “With a view to offer more digital assets to our users and expand our product base, we have acquired a New York -dealer.”

He further went on to add “They (Uphold) have gone so far as to file with FINRA for becoming a broker-dealer, and this newly gained broker-dealer status permits us to indulge in activities that we would not have been able to do previously.”

Sherwin then went on to add, “It also is in accordance with our mission of transparency and adhering trust as we are submitting to the regulation that is responsive and appropriate to what the regulators discuss.”

Future plans of becoming an alternative trading system (ATS) with the SEC are also in the wish list of Uphold.

The report also states that, In order to be termed as a registered broker-dealer, an approval of a change of ownership has been filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

As part of its new securities platform Uphold seeks to offer fraction equities, security tokens, and a few other exchange services. However, it would have to be under the supervision of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and FINRA.

JNK and Uphold will operate as two distinct companies till their merger is completed. Uphold wishes to make use of all the help it would receive from JNK’s employees for moving forward with its expansion plans.

Regarding these plans, Sherwin states, “JNK is a firm with 25 years of experience in the financial markets. In order to run a broker-dealer firm, good operators and quality people are required and JNK has a good amount of people who specialize and have the expertise required for this business.

Sherwin further stated, “From a process point of view the employees of JNK have a license which we are hoping to expand so that we both can benefit from it, we will benefit from their institutional reach and they will benefit by our consumer reach.”