Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
March 13, 2019 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- Cryptocurrency
exchanges vary immensely in the products, features and capabilities
they offer. This is not always up to the company itself, but has to
do with government regulations in place where the organization is
based. Further, secondary banking, money or cryptocurrency handling
licenses are needed in many countries to offer services such as
fiat deposits. This has encouraged a great deal of collaboration
between blockchain technology based start ups and existing
financial institutions that already have specialized licenses in
place.
Revolut - A Banking
Unicorn
The company originated in Level39,
a financial technology incubator in Canary Wharf, London, founded
by Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko. In April of last year,
completed their final fundraising round totaling $250 million The
funding was led by Hong Kong-based DST Global, and brought the
company’s total valuation to $1.7 billion - a unicorn start up.
Today, Revolut Ltd is still based in the UK, and offers banking
services including a prepaid debit cards (MasterCard or VISA) for
individuals or businesses, currency exchange, cryptocurrency
exchange and peer-to-peer payments.
In December of last year, Revolut
was granted the Specialised Bank licence and the Electronic Money
Institution licence from European Central Bank. The process was
facilitated by the Bank of Lithuania. This gave Revolut
authorization to accept deposits and offer consumer credits. The
primary difference between a specialised and a full-range bank is
the ability to provide investment services. As a specialised bank,
Revolut cannot provide instant services.
Cryptocurrency
Trading
Their mobile app includes ATM
withdrawals in 120 currencies and the ability to send 26 currencies
directly from the app, as well as instant access to Bitcoin (BTC),
Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ripple (XRP).
All cryptocurrencies can be exchanged to or from 25 fiat
currencies. The only downfall is that cryptocurrencies within
Revolut are not actually held by the customer, meaning they cannot
transfer the tokens to another wallet or spend them as a normal
currency.
However, because of their process
for handling cryptocurrency, Revolut was recently able to establish
a new method to ensure the value of a users cryptocurrency by
setting exchange limits. Similar to them method on standard
exchanges where a certain price cap can be set above or below the
current price to automatically buy or sell a given amount of the
currency. An auto-exchange can be made for all or part of a
customer’s balance from any fiat or crypto currency supported by
their app.
By: BGN Editorial Staff