International digital payments company PayPal sent a letter to the European Commission early this week. The letter confirmed the market’s speculation: the platform is looking into getting into the cryptocurrency space.
PayPal is reportedly urging for the EC to establish rules and definitions for companies entering the market.
The letter also said that it had intended to join Facebook’s Libra association to create a global cryptocurrency. Libra’s main mission is to provide financial services to the unbanked around the world.
But PayPal was the first financial company from its membership in the association. Mastercard and Visa followed soon after.
Now, the platform seeks to expose its own customers to the asset class. PayPal currently caters about 365 million people around the world.
The firm recognizes the crypto-asset industry as a controversial industry, emphasizing its impact on decentralization and the global economy. PayPal claims that it’s currently studying the potential of blockchain to diffuse significant roadblocks in investors’ interest in cryptocurrencies.
Moreover, the secure network could also be used as a way to improve transparency and compliance efforts.
What Will the EU Do?
As the firm continues its efforts to establish its framework, PayPal expects the EU to establish definitions on how it plans to ensure consumer protection. According to them, the lack of clear regulations in the bloc has been discouraging firms to join the crypto-asset industry.
In their discussions with the leaders of European countries, PayPal cautioned regulators of possible biases against certain technologies. Any regulation should be “technology agnostic,” or could be used in different technologies to promote competition and innovation.
If the EU manages to implement these regulations well, they will be beneficial to both merchants and customers.
PayPal is a world-renowned baking and payment platform with a license to practice in Luxembourg. Its applications are available in 31 European countries and has 95 million clients there.
A cryptocurrency platform, Coinbase, is in a partnership with PayPal to allow users to pay for transactions with Bitcoin.
