BitcoinPoint becomes the first Crypto-asset Firm registered with the FCA exploiting ATMs in the UK
Source: BitcoinPoint
30 November 2021 – London-based Fintech firm BitcoinPoint (registered name: BCP Technologies Ltd), is extremely pleased to announce that it has secured approval from the Financial Conduct Authority ("FCA") obtaining the Registered Crypto-asset Firm Licence (FRN: 928840)
This permanent Crypto-asset registration will enable BitcoinPoint to continue to reach UK retail customers after March 2022 where all ‘temporary’ registrations will be revoked.
Indeed, if a company wish to provide crypto services in the UK, it must register with the FCA for the Crypto-asset licence registration formally known as the FCA AML/CTF Crypto-asset Registration regime. All crypto companies trading prior to 2020 had to apply by June 2020, and less than one hundred companies were listed under the temporary registration regime.
A year and half later, only 20 companies converted their temporary registration into a permanent one. While some large exchanges are still struggling to obtain the licence, most companies have clearly been rejected with an unregistered status.
BitcoinPoint, the services:
BitcoinPoint is allowing its customers easy and instant access to Bitcoin from their smartphones. BitcoinPoint has also been the only crypto exchange leveraging the largest ATM network in the UK since last year.
A BitcoinPoint account can be opened in less than 30 seconds with Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements completed in less than two minutes.
Where all the other exchanges require users to deposit GBP via bank transfers (or credit cards) to buy bitcoin later from a GBP e-money account, BitcoinPoint allows instant top-up through Open Banking technologies or standard bank transfers. A user can therefore scan an existing Bitcoin wallet to reduce his or her exposition to the company.
This BTC-only underdog, with its unique dual non-custodial solution on both fiat and crypto has already seduced thousands of customers.
Users can also enjoy a unique ‘cashing out’ feature at their nearest ATM (over 18,000 machines in the UK) and set up recurring buying orders for a Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) strategy.
BitcoinPoint is also a bitcoin wallet enabling Bitcoin Lightning payments on iOS and soon on Android and are integrating the Twitter tipping feature in the coming days.
With the granting of the FCA registration, BitcoinPoint plans to further its innovative solutions related to Bitcoin.
Benoit Marzouk, CEO of BitcoinPoint:
“We are delighted to enter the very exclusive club of registered companies, our Compliance team, the IT team and the management have worked hard to reach the requirements set by the regulator.”
We asked what makes BitcoinPoint different from other crypto services:
“Where most crypto exchanges are promoting the latest ‘dog coin’ unethically and pushing customers to buy and sell as much as possible, our vision from the beginning was simple:
Democratising the access to Bitcoin, the digital gold, the only crypto with a truly decentralised governance and a deterministic fixed supply. We made it easy for non-tech savvy people to purchase bitcoin at the most competitive rate. We had a feature allowing our users to buy with one click from over 28,000 Point of Sales but we decided to stop cash collection to change our risk profile, but it doesn’t take much more time -three to four clicks- to buy bitcoin with the app by linking a UK bank account, and the cost is around 0.2% which is very reasonable.
Our users can also use ATMs to sell their bitcoin and withdraw cash, set up recurring transfers from their bank accounts (daily, weekly, …) which will be automatically convert into bitcoin to allow a Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) strategy which empirically has been very profitable!”
What is BitcoinPoint’s plan in terms of business development?
Our short-term goal would be to collaborate with banking partners to integrate our Bitcoin Online Wallet solution into their banking apps to bring value to their clients. Any corporation with retail customers could potentially integrate our on-ramp (ways to buy) and off-ramp (ways to sell) solutions to offer Bitcoin to their customers. We are already in discussion with a major player in the space for an integration early 2022.
Do you have other developments related to Bitcoin?
Back in 2018, we developed a service to accept Bitcoin payments and we are able confirm on-chain payments in seconds, any merchant could be interested by this service. We also strongly believe in the Lightning network for Bitcoin payments and for remittances as it is already used by over 3 million people in El Salvador, and that’s why we’ve been implementing it into in our app.”
To learn more, visit their website www.bitcoinpoint.com