Robinhood, a big trade primarily based within the US, has acquired a small UK crypto agency, Ziglu, for an undisclosed price. The transfer marks Robinhood’s first step in the direction of opening operations inside the UK, as their assertion confirms;
“Within the close to time period, nothing will change for present Ziglu clients. Long run, we’ll combine Ziglu extra totally into Robinhood, convey the Robinhood model abroad, and work to develop operations past the UK into Europe.”
At present, Robinhood has no plans to open up inventory buying and selling to clients outdoors of the US. Their objective is to “begin opening our crypto platform as much as clients internationally.”
Ziglu customers earn as much as 5% on BTC.
Ziglu presently presents a spread of merchandise to UK clients, together with interest-bearing merchandise resembling GBP Enhance and BTC Enhance. Each provide 5% APY on staked property. Additional, crypto-assets might be held in custody with Ziglu and be spent utilizing a Ziglu debit card.
Nonetheless, like Robinhood, there are points with transferring crypto property out and in of the Ziglu app. Robinhood customers couldn’t transfer crypto in or out of their accounts till this yr after they launched their crypto pockets characteristic. There are nonetheless severe limitations with the Robinhood pockets, resembling every day transaction limits and ready for transactions to ‘settle’ when utilizing Robinhood Instantaneous. You possibly can solely ship $5,000 price of crypto per day out of your Robinhood account.
This raises questions concerning the liquidity inside the trade, and why resembling restrict is imposed. Ziglu, nonetheless, presently presents no capacity to deposit or withdraw crypto onto its platform. It’s merely a fiat on and off-ramp for crypto purchases. You possibly can deposit fiat in GBP, EUR, or USD, however you can not deposit or withdraw crypto. In a current letter to shareholders, they introduced that crypto transfers had been coming together with Apple Pay.
We reached out to Ziglu CEO Mark Hipperson instantly, who remarked,
“We’re delighted at what the mixed energy of Robinhood and Ziglu can convey to our clients.”
Robinhood – a serious international agency
The information comes simply weeks after Ziglu introduced they’d accomplished their Collection A funding spherical. They revealed they “obtained an enhanced provide from a serious international agency,” which now seems to have been Robinhood. Within the announcement, they additional acknowledged that they had been seeking to obtain an “Appointed Consultant” standing, which might permit them to supply shares and shares inside the platform.
This might imply that Robinhood could have the framework to supply the same service to UK clients because it presently presents within the US. Nonetheless, there isn’t any data from both occasion to verify this.
Hipperson additionally took to Twitter to share the information with the Ziglu group,
I’m excited to announce that @ZigluMoney has signed an settlement to be acquired by Robinhood. Democratising finance has at all times been my ardour and with @RobinhoodApp we share a typical objective. Working to cut back the limitations to entry for a brand new era https://t.co/KMBS6jv0g0
— Mark Hipperson 💙💛 (@markhippo) April 19, 2022
Robinhood’s CEO, Vlad Tenev, additionally declared that “Ziglu’s spectacular staff of deeply skilled monetary companies and crypto consultants will assist us speed up our international growth efforts.”
Ziglu brings simply 103,000 new clients to the Robinhood ecosystem of 17 million customers. Nonetheless, the transfer is probably going targeted extra on buying a authorized entity that has already handed the required regulatory hurdles than including customers. A timeframe for any modifications or rebranding of Ziglu has not been launched. Nothing will change within the quick time period accounting to the announcement.
When or what is going to occur in the long run is unsure, but it surely appears doable that the Robinhood model could have a presence within the UK sooner or later sooner or later. Certainly, it’s a legitimate strategy as regulation turns into a spotlight of the key crypto gamers to accumulate corporations who’ve already navigated the native panorama as an alternative of beginning the method from scratch. May we now maybe see Robinhood take the same strategy in different territories?
