Robinhood International Gets Approval To Operate In The UK

By Rishma Banerjee

As per a post published on their blog, on the 7th of August, the Robinhood stock and crypto trading app has received approval by the top British regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to operate as a broker in the United Kingdom. It can now legally offer its trading app in the country.

Robinhood said in the report that the FCA approval would allow the company to offer its investing platform to British users, further noting that this move is going to be an extremely important step to achieve their “mission of democratising finance for all”.

The post also mentions that their London team is already growing and that they are looking to hire people “across compliance, operations, user research, and marketing.”

The announcement regarding the approval was made public alongside another announcement, in which the Robinhood team revealed that they had appointed Wander Rutgers, the former head of treasury at money transfer service TransferWiseas the President of Robinhood International. The post reads,

“Wander has a deep background in fintech, joining us from Plum, where he spearheaded the investing and savings product.”

The blog post also noted that he would be leading the U.K. business and manage Robinhood’s new London office. Wander Rutgers, the president of the Robinhood International said,

“Today marks the beginning of a new chapter for Robinhood, and we’re excited to take the first important step towards bringing our investing platform to customers in the U.K. I’m thrilled to be a part of Robinhood and our effort to expand into a new international market.”

Robinhood Financial, with its main branch based in the US, is registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It is also a member of both of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and Securities Investor Protection Corporation.

The FCA issued a month ago a policy statement regarding cryptocurrencies that stated that the agency would not be regulating Bitcoin in its legal guidelines for crypto assets.