Change, an Amsterdam-based cryptocurrency platform for retail investors, announced that it has acquired a new Dutch licence that will enable it to provide services with traditional and new-age financial assets throughout the EU.
The announcement comes after the launch of the Change Investor Card, where users can make quick crypto payments for everything using the Growth Pocket feature of the app.
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Change Group, the parent company, received approval from the Dutch Central Bank (DCB) to offer its financial services to the 453M people living in the European Economic Area.
As a result, the Dutch company can now ramp up its investment options, including stocks, shares, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and even commodities, as well as its established crypto and DeFi products.
With this move, the company aims to make investing and wealth creation simple, affordable, and accessible with a wide range of traditional and new-age digital financial assets.
Ronald van der Wal, Change’s Global Chief Risk & Compliance Officer, says, “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.”
He adds, “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.”
Change: What you need to know
Founded by Kristjan Kangro (CEO) and Gustav Liblik (CPO) in 2016, Change is a Dutch-Estonian community-driven investing platform that’s on a mission to remove the barriers and complexities to wealth creation.
To date, the company has raised $21M (€18M) in funding backed by over 7,000 private investors.
Roger Cook, former global CEO of DHL, and Hans van der Noordaa, former CEO of the Retail Division of ING Bank and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deloitte Netherlands, also back the company.
Kristjan Kangro, founder and CEO of Change, says, “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,” he adds.
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