In a new development, Coinbase and British pound sterling entered a new partnership, which will allow UK citizens to trade on Coinbase via their native currency.

Coinbase and British Pound Partner Up

Coinbase is one of the oldest crypto exchanges around, and definitely one of the most popular ones in the UK. Now, the exchange has news for its UK customers, and the new development is expected to be a real delight.

After years of having to exchange pounds for Euros in order to trade on Coinbase, crypto enthusiasts from the UK will now finally be able to do the same via their native currency. This came from the company’s own announcement, stating that the British pound is officially a new fiat accepted by the platform. Coinbase and British pound partnership will definitely make life easier for the UK traders, and will even allow them to make withdrawals and deposits on the same day.

This announcement came only hours ago and was published on Coinbase’s Medium page. In a new post, the company declared that they will roll out GBP support on the platform, so that all British individual customers, institutions, and traders can benefit from the change. This is expected to speed up the payment process, and to allow same day withdrawals and deposits.

This will make a big difference in how the UK users trade on Coinbase, and it will simplify the procedure. Until now, all those willing to trade, deposit, or withdraw funds would have to go through several conversions. Withdrawals required converting cryptos into Euros and then converting those Euros into Pound Sterling. The same had to be done for deposits, only the procedure was reversed, and Pounds had to become Euros first before cryptos could be bought.

The process was tiresome and it took days to complete. However, the new move by Coinbase and British Pound will completely erase the necessity to go the long way around, and GBP can now be directly exchanged for cryptocurrencies, and vice versa.

Coinbase in the Process of Making Big Changes

The long process was also troublesome for Coinbase itself, especially when it comes to working with UK banks. The CEO of Coinbase’s UK branch, Zeeshan Feroz, stated that the company worked hard in order to add GBP support to the platform. This came in addition to the efforts to make Coinbase the most trustworthy and efficient platform for the UK crypto users.

According to him, the company had to do a lot in order to add pound sterling to the list of supported cryptos, including obtaining the e-money license from FCA, implementing Faster Payment Scheme support, as well as becoming the first crypto exchange to get an official bank account with a UK bank.

This might sound simple, but it really was not, and the fact that UK banks aren’t really big crypto supporters did not help the process. According to Zeeshan:

UK banks have been conservative in terms of working with crypto businesses and we’re proud to be one of the first companies to get access to domestic banking.

Coinbase and British Pound partnership can lead to significant increase in volume when it comes to crypto transactions. This is especially important considering that the UK is currently the 5th largest economy in the world. In addition to this, the company will soon be including fiat-crypto pairs for the Pound Sterling, and the first ones should appear within a few days.

These additions will be a pleasant and significant change for everyone dealing with cryptos, but the professional traders are expected to benefit from them the most. Additional plans by the company, that were announced last month, also include the inclusion of new digital assets. For now, Coinbase UK only supports Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), and Litecoin (LTC) due to regulatory issues in the country. Soon, however, this list might expand, and additional assets might join.