OANDA, a crypto brokerage firm based in the United States, is preparing to launch its crypto trading services in the United Kingdom through its registered subsidiary, OANDA Crypto. This subsidiary was established last year following OANDA’s acquisition of a majority stake in Coinpass, a company registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The new crypto trading platform will provide trading services for more than 63 cryptocurrency pairs, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), with plans to expand its offerings in the future by adding more tokens and features.
OANDA’s expansion into the UK comes over a year after the company introduced crypto trading services in the US in collaboration with Paxos, a popular crypto trading platform. Recently, the firm relocated its European operations from Malta to Warsaw, Poland, and acquired the Polish broker Dom Maklerski TMS Brokers SA, which was later rebranded as OANDA TMS.
OANDA has consistently chosen regions with stringent regulatory requirements, starting with the US and now the UK. Since October 2023, several prominent crypto companies have withdrawn their services from the UK due to the FCA’s new regulatory guidelines on crypto advertising. Last year, Bybit and Revolut temporarily suspended their operations in the UK, citing the FCA’s new promotion rules.
These new advertising rules only permit FCA-registered virtual asset service providers to promote their activities in the country. The rules also necessitate that crypto firms make significant adjustments to their online platforms in order to better inform potential customers about investment risks.
The FCA discovered widespread non-compliance among crypto firms with regards to the crypto promotion rules that took effect on October 8, 2023. Between October 8 and December 31, 2023, the regulator issued 450 consumer alerts against virtual asset companies that were illegally promoting crypto.
Lucian Lauerman, the Head of Digital Assets at OANDA, described the UK market as highly knowledgeable and active. He stated that the market is becoming more aligned with the markets where OANDA has traditionally operated, with higher regulatory standards.
Cointelegraph reached out to OANDA for comments, but has not yet received a response.