Investment platform Change becomes one of a select few businesses globally to hold dual crypto and traditional investment services licence
Crypto trailblazer Change has announced it has acquired a new Dutch licence – enabling the business to provide services with traditional and new-age financial assets EU-wide for the very first time.
Change’s parent company, Change Group, received approval from the Dutch Central Bank to acquire an investment firm based in the Netherlands with a licence to offer its financial services to the 453 million people living in the European Economic Area.
As a result, Change can now ramp up its investment footprint with traditional opportunities – including everything from stocks, shares, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and even commodities, as well as its established crypto and DeFi products.
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Importantly, the additional level of protection afforded by the new investment firm offers added peace of mind for investors and places Change one step ahead of Europe’s impending landmark cryptocurrency regulation.
Kristjan Kangro, founder and CEO of Change, said: “This is a huge step for us. Recently, we’ve invested significant sums in upgrading our platform and boosting our range of crypto services to be able to compete on a global stage – but we want to do much more.”
“This additional licence means we can remove more complexities our community faces on their wealth creation journey. Combining our crypto expertise with our investment firm licence‘s new possibilities means we can ramp up our investment footprint and accelerate growth.
“As the lines between traditional and digital investment opportunities continue to blur, this move gives us a strong foothold and provides our community with the best of both worlds.”
Ronald van der Wal, Change’s Global Chief Risk & Compliance Officer, added: “Having an additional licence that allows us to offer a full financial services proposition in every country of the European Economic Area is game-changing.
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“This development affords us a massive opportunity to grow not only geographically but also in the variety of investment opportunities we can offer our customers. Now, our focus remains on diversifying our portfolio and driving wider innovation.”
Before acquiring the firm, Change conducted research that cited the three key reasons millennials are not investing in stocks: high entry barriers, the complexity of the tools, and high fees. Change aims to remove these barriers and complexities by making investing and wealth creation simple, affordable and accessible with a wide range of traditional and new-age digital financial assets, no minimum balances and low fees.
The new licence announcement follows the recent launch of the Change Investor Card where users can make quick crypto payments for everything using the Growth Pocket feature of the app offering access to Change’s competitive 7% APY.
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