SnapSwap, the company that was offering Ripple Gateway service in the United States until few days ago has announced that it has received license to operate in the European Union. The company has at the moment suspended its Ripple Gateway operations in the United States. SnapSwap’s website requests its US customers to withdraw any leftover SnapSwap USD balance from their accounts on the platform.
SnapSwap has announced on Monday that the company has received the license required to offer financial services in Europe. The license was issued by the Ministry of Finance in Luxembourg. Armed with this license or BitLicense (if you prefer to differentiate between regular financial services and cryptocurrency based financial services companies) SnapSwap can now offer digital currency based exchange, payments and remittance services, all within the regulatory framework of the region.
SnapSwap was founded in the year 2012 by Denis Kiselev and Natalia Pavlova who is the CTO and co-founder of the company. Denis is a seasoned banker and entrepreneur who has worked with World Bank before starting the company. Natalia has been with Deutsche Bank and was responsible for the development of scalable financial platforms at Deutsche Bank. In 2015, SnapSwap changed its headquarters from the United States to Luxembourg.
The company, by moving to Luxembourg has placed itself in the international finance and communication hub. This will provide SnapSwap direct access to the world’s economy and by creating a regulated platform, licensed by the Ministry of Finance SnapSwap will be able to build trust with its potential clients.
SnapSwap is expected to start its European operations sometime later next year. The company will be operating out of Luxembourg under the jurisdiction of the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) as a payments institution, focusing on cryptocurrency powered financial services.