Coinbase has been progressively making inroads into the U.K market as it seeks to become a market leader in the lucrative market. The San Francisco-based crypto exchange announced on Wednesday, September 5 that it would begin to support four more British pounds (GBP) trading pairs for its U.K users. The four trading pairs will be added to the already existing BTC-GBP offering that Coinbase Pro already offers and will make it much easier for U.K users to trade in cryptos. Coinbase launches the new pairs on Friday, September 6 in three stages that are meant to ensure seamless integration.
Conquering the U.K
The GBP support will be enabled by the Faster Payments Scheme, a payment service that facilitates the secure and fast settlement of mobile and internet payments. Faster Payments Scheme was introduced in the U.K a decade ago and has gone on to process over 9 billion payments, worth over £6 trillion. Coinbase Pro will be the first and only major crypto trading platform to integrate the Faster Payments Scheme into its operations. Already, U.K Coinbase users can send GBP to their bank accounts via domestic bank transfers.
The launch shall be executed in three stages, all of which will be monitored independently for the four new trading pairs. The first shall be the post-only stage in which the users will be able to post limit orders on the platform, but none shall be matched to the buyers. This stage is expected to be just ten minutes long. In the next stage, limit orders will start to match, but market orders will not be available. This stage is also expected to last ten minutes after which the last stage, full trading, shall commence. Users will then have all the options available on the Coinbase Pro platform including market and stop orders. Coinbase Pro’s General Manager, David Farmer stated that should any of the new order books not meet the expected assessment at any stage of the launch, it may be kept at that stage longer or even suspended altogether.
The new GBP trading pairs that will be launched are LTC-GBP, ETH-GBP, BCH-GBP and ETC-GBP. These will be added to the already existing BTC-GBP pair that Coinbase Pro has been offering its clients.
The significance of the U.K market can’t be overstated. The British capital is ranked as the second-largest financial center in the world after New York as well as being the European financial center. This makes conquering the U.K market critical for Coinbase. Recognizing this, Coinbase announced a month ago that it would add GBP support which would enable same-day deposits and withdrawals for U.K users. This was one in a number of moves the firm has taken in its quest to dominate the U.K crypto trading space including obtaining an e-money license for its fiat operations from the Financial Conduct Authority and becoming the first crypto trading platform to open a bank account with a major UK bank.
The e-money license issued by the FCA gave Coinbase access to 23 other European markets and will be key in its expansion plans. Currently, the European crypto trading market is up for anyone’s taking as most of the trading platforms have only dominated in specific countries.
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