In August this year BittyBot added UK bitcoin exchanges to the site to make it easier for you to compare prices, trade volumes and fees alongside the existing prices quoted by bitcoin merchants and peer-to-peer marketplaces.

This was driven primarily by the Isle of Man’s decision to support bitcoin businesses and more importantly Capital Treasury Services (CTS) which is based on the Isle of Man, acting as an intermediary between bitcoin exchanges based in the British Isles and the UK banks. This allowed customers to deposit funds to exchanges easily, using a UK Bank Transfer which had the advantage of no bank fees and the speed of Faster Payments.

When CTS reversed its decision due to pressure from its UK banking partners, many exchanges lost their ability to offer customers an easy and cost effective way to deposit funds. The London-based exchange Coinfloor and Isle of Man-based CoinCorner continued to allow customers to deposit funds as GBP but now this required an International (SWIFT) bank transfer along with its additional fees and slower delivery.

This has levelled the playing field so to speak, and opened up a global market for GBP trading bitcoin exchanges; it no longer matters if your exchange is based in the British Isles or overseas, the chances are you will still need to make an International Bank Transfer to deposit funds. What’s more important to the customer is the price, liquidity and security provided by the exchange.

It is for this reason BittyBot is now listing for comparison, all bitcoin exchanges which trade GBP whether they are based in the UK, the British Isles or abroad.

Kraken

The most recent bitcoin exchange to offer GBP trading is Kraken, which is based in the US. Although running out of San Francisco, Kraken is very much euro focused being the largest (in terms of volume) for EUR trading according to BitcoinAverage.

Kraken have partnered with PayCash, a Luxembourg-based company to allow customers to deposit funds in GBP. This means you will need to make an international bank transfer which will incur normal bank charges on top of paying Kraken a 0.19% deposit fee (the minimum deposit fee is £10).

The minimum deposit amount is £50. It’s also possible to make a SEPA bank transfer to their Luxembourg account, but this would increase costs due to the currency exchange from pounds to euros which is normally required for SEPA.

As well as BTC, Kraken also supports other digital currencies including Litecoin, Dogecoin, Namecoin, Ripple, Stellar and lesser known Ven which is an asset backed currency. Trade fees are tiered on volume and vary between Crypto/Fiat and Crypto/Crypto trading pairs, full details of fees are here.

ANX

ANX are based in Hong Kong and provide two different bitcoin exchange products. ANXBTC is designed to make the purchasing of bitcoins as simple and easy as possible.

Customers enter the amount of BTC they wish to buy or the amount of GBP they wish to spend, the system then makes a market order to get the best price, the price quoted is valid for 30 seconds after which a new quote will be given if it’s not confirmed or canceled.

For more advanced trading you can use their ANXPRO product which works more like a traditional exchange, allowing you to view the order book and make limit orders to get the exact price you want. ANXPRO also supports trading not only of BTC but other crypto-currencies (Litecoin, Dogecoin, Namecoin, Peercoin and Stellar) directly with fiat.

ANX supports many global fiat currencies of which GBP is just one, their use of a combined order book for all currencies maximises liquidity which is a real advantage since GBP trading in terms of the global market is relatively small. Trading fees are skewed in the interest of market makers, as opposed to market takers, details of all fees are here.

ANX provides two different methods for UK customers to deposit funds, the first is the normal international bank transfer for which ANX charge no fee, there’s only your standard bank charges to pay. The minimum deposit amount for this method is £200.

The second way to deposit funds is more innovative. ANX have partnered with ZipZap, the global payments network, to allow customers to deposit cash directly into their ANX account. Cash deposits can be made at over 20,000 Payzone locations throughout the UK.

The minimum amount for a cash deposit is £10 and the maximum £300, which is exactly the same limits as if you were to purchase bitcoins directly from ZipZap. The advantage of using this deposit method with ANX is being able to take better advantage of market conditions, although the downside is that there is a 2.5% deposit fee when using ZipZap.

BTC-e

BTC-e is one of the oldest bitcoin exchanges and remains largely anonymous with its location and owner(s) being unknown. Saying that it is one of the big four leading BTC exchanges in the world, which along with Bitstamp, Bitfinex and LakeBTC meet Coindesk’s criteria to contribute their price information towards the Bitcoin Price Index (BPI).

Earlier this year BTC-e announced support for GBP which along with the other fiat currencies USD, EUR, RUR (Russian Rouble) and CNH (Chinese Yuan) could be traded directly for Bitcoin or Litecoin.

BTC-e also provides trading between a number of other crypto-curriences which include Namecoin, Novacoin, Peercoin, Terracoin, Feathercoin and Primecoin.

For depositing GBP, BTC-e provides customers with two different methods, OKPAY or MoneyPolo (there is no longer the option to deposit funds directly with the exchange via an international bank transfer). BTC-e charges a 1% deposit fee when using either of these payment methods.