Mark Kelly to Join Coinbase as UK Head of Compliance

By Swati Kishore

After the news of Coinbase acquiring Blockspring (a San Francisco-based firm that develops software for collecting and processing data from APIs) broke out on January 17, 2019, the crypto exchange in news again. As per news reports, Mark Kelly, the London-based compliance expert who has worked extensively in the financial industry, is joining Coinbase as the Head of Compliance for the UK region.

The San Francisco headquartered Coinbase is one of the world’s largest digital currency exchange.

Kelly has spent the last few years of his career as the Director of Abide Financial.

Abide Financial is a firm that manages transaction reporting for financial and non-financial counterparties in the UK, Europe and beyond. It was acquired by NEX. NEX itself was acquired by the CME Group in 2018, in what was the year’s one of the biggest acquisitions in the finance industry.

After completing his 5-year stint at Abide Financial, Mark Kelly is now bringing his expertise from the FinTech industry to Coinbase.

In his new role as the Head of Compliance at the crypto exchange’s UK arm, Kelly will be working parallelly with the UK CEO, Zeeshan Feroz.

The news of Kelly’s onboarding is important to the crypto community because regulations around cryptocurrencies have become a hot topic in today’s time.

The mass adoption of digital currencies will eventually result in the maturation of the crypto industry. Hence, the crypto market is at such a stage where the need of veteran compliance specialists is of utmost importance. Such experts will be able to pave the way forward for regulatory developments in the crypto market and take them to the next stage.

Kelly’s new role at Coinbase will see him spearheading the hotly-debated issue of compliance.

Kelly’s wide experience gives him the essential knowledge to assist in the development of hybrid products that amalgamate traditional finance and decentralized cryptography technology.