EXCLUSIVE—Crypto wallet provider Wirex will be expanding its services to several new markets in 2018, including the United States, CEO Pavel Matveev told Bank Innovation.
“It’s [one of] our top priorities at the moment, we are in the process of getting a company, looking for names,” Matveev said. “We are planning to launch with product probably in Q2 this year.”
While the service will be focusing on expansion to the United States, the U.S. is not the top market for crypto wallets as yet: which is why Wirex will also be looking to expand in regions like Latin America, Korea, and Japan, Matveev said, though the company will be keeping a close eye on regulatory developments in these countries, he said.
Cryptocurrency regulation is, obviously, a key concern for a crypto wallet provider, especially one that has issued more than 500,000 crypto debit cards to customers in its existing markets. The company recently made headlines when one of its issuers, WaveCrest, was removed from the Visa network due to lack of compliance with Visa’s polices, the card provider said.
The company is using its other issuer, though 600,000 customers in Europe were affected by the removal, Matveev said. As of now, Wirex has about 1.2 million customers across the globe in more than 130 countries—European customers were the only ones affected by WaveCrest, he said.
“We’re already using our second issuer, all of our [affected] users will have new cards,” Matveev said of WaveCrest.
As for expansion, the company is “watching the regulation in Korea closely,” said Matveev, which he anticipates will be a near “exact copy” of the crypto regulations presently unfolding in Japan: in contrast to the crackdown on crypto in countries such as China, Japan has continued to allow crypto exchanges to operate, with “millions” of outgoing crypto trades being conducted, according to Matveev.
Learn more about cryptocurrency wallets and trading at Bank Innovation 2018 in San Francisco on March 5-6. Request your invitation here.