Robinhood, a popular trading platform based in the United States, announced Tuesday that it had signed an agreement with Ziglu to acquire a regulated cryptocurrency company.
Robinhood spoke out about its mission to “democratize finance for all” and stated that it had set ambitious goals to open up its crypto platform to international customers. The trading platform, which is Nasdaq-listed, was added:
We are excited to announce the acquisition of Ziglu Limited, an electronic money institution and cryptoasset company based in the UK, as part of our international expansion.
Robinhood stated that the deal is subject to regulatory approvals as well as other customary closing conditions.
Ziglu was founded in 2014. It allows U.K.-based retail investors the ability to purchase and sell 11 cryptocurrencies. Ziglu’s Boost products allow users to earn yield, pay with a debit card and transfer money around the world without any fees. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulates the U.K. crypto company. Last November, the group was valued at PS85million. It raised PS7million.
Mark Hipperson, CEO of Ziglu, stated that both companies share a set of common goals.
We will be part of Robinhood and help Robinhood expand across Europe. This will allow Robinhood to offer better access to cryptocurrency and its benefits to millions of customers.
This announcement also states that no changes will be made for existing Ziglu customers in the short term. Robinhood will integrate Ziglu over the long-term to ‘bring Robinhood’ to Europe as it expands its operations beyond the U.K.
Robinhood announced plans to launch internationally in January , stating it believes in the enormous potential of crypto economies and sees great opportunity in serving customers around the world.
Steve Quirk is Robinhood’s chief broker officer. He explained that Robinhood’s global expansion would be ‘crypto-first’. According to Quirk, Robinhood’s regulatory perspective, it is likely that Robinhood will go global first and gain the most traction. Then, he may add other parts of the offering.
Robinhood recently launched its cryptocurrency wallets for more than 2 million customers. This month, the platform added support for four more cryptocurrencies, including meme cryptocurrency shiba inu. SHIB now supports the platform along with bitcoin ( BTC), Bitcoin Cash ( BCH), bitcoinSV ( BSV), Dogecoin(DOGE), Ethereum classic ( ETC), Litecoin ( LTC), compound, polygon (MATIC), solana (SOL)