Bitpanda has announced its first acquisition in London-based Trustology. In so much, the FCA registered institutional crypto custodian wallet provider formerly known as Trustology will be rebranded as Bitpanda Custody, giving the company the ability to perform custodian services in the UK alongside its EU operations. In so much, according to the company, the acquisition will make it one of the largest digital assets custody providers on a global scale. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.
Starting out life as a crypto-trading platform back in 2014, Bitpanda has evolved into a diverse investment platform, and it would appear that they’re not done yet. In April of last year the company added commission-free stock trading to the platform, and in June opened the doors on its white label B2B offering.
The addition of Trustology’s institutional-grade services is the first step in launching a Prime Brokerage, a service operating under a march larger umbrella, that of Bitpanda Pro.
“This is a great step for us as a company and especially for Bitpanda Pro. Bitpanda Custody is part of our strategy to offer a fully comprehensive set of services to our client base and we can now combine an FCA registered, institutional-grade custody solution with a leading trade execution venue,” commented Bitpanda CEO Joshua Barraclough. “We have invested a lot in upgrading Bitpanda Pro exchange as well as boosting our liquidity partnerships, so that we can compete with the largest exchanges on execution capabilities. Now we are looking to massively increase our footprint and bring lots more clients to our venues.”
On the acquisition, Trustology founder Alex Batlin commented, “We are really excited to press the Bitpanda turbo button in its mission to make institutional crypto custody safer, faster and easier. Whether you are a service provider using our scalable, white-labeled high-performance wallet automation platform, a DeFi institutional investor using our bespoke integrations to access DApps or breakout features like DeFi Firewall and transaction decoding, or a token issuer looking to remove barriers to purchase. You’ll get wider cryptoasset and jurisdictional support, higher insurance coverage and SOC 2 certification to go along with a competitor-beating pricing model.”
However … as Trustology is an FCA registered cryptoasset service provider, current UK money laundering regulations do not permit for the FCA to assess a new beneficial owner before a purchase has taken effect. Meaning, as of right now, Bitpanda Custody’s FCA certification remains up in the air as the FCA cannot confirm Bitpanda as a ‘fit and proper’ owner. Should any discrepancies be found, the FCA reserves the right to axe the firm’s UK registration OR impose directions to control its activities.
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