It was announced that Binance would be expanding its operations once again, this time towards the United Kingdom, with a trading launch set to take place as early as September this year. Binance has been looking to get its foot in a number of key markets across the globe, and this is a major step into a big ecosystem.
Some details have been revealed thus far on a live stream with the fees for fiat deposit and withdrawals standing out for their low price. The UK Director of Binance, Teana Baker-Taylor, explained on a live-streamed call that also had the CEO, Xhangpeng Zhao, that they are expecting fees to be as low as 30p ($0.38)
This is impressively low, especially in comparison with other major exchanges, and is being achieved thanks to a partnership that Binance has in order to access the Faster Payment’s network in the UK.
“Faster Payments in the UK is the payments network set up for banks to exchange with each other. We have a service provider that will support that functionality for us, and the fees, as CZ explained, will be passed through to the user but they are minimal, somewhere around 30p,” Baker-Taylor said.
A new market
These fees are clearly geared towards benefiting individual traders, but the move from Binance is certainly two, or three fold.
This move is designed to allow both institutional and retail investors to buy and sell cryptocurrencies using pounds and euros, Binance said. It will be regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority.
Up to 65 digital assets are being considered to be available at the launch.
Institutional interest in cryptocurrencies has increased. A recent Fidelity survey of 800 institutional investors found that nearly 80 percent see the appeal of digital assets and more than one-third are invested in the market.
“Interest and participation in the UK digital asset markets is growing; not just in-depth with its current participants, but also in breadth,” Binance UK Director Teana Baker-Taylor told Reuters. “As crypto services mature and evolve, we’re able to create new options to engage and capture interest from a wider audience with varying risk appetites, such as products that earn a yield for participation, like staking and passive savings,”
