Barclays backs 'social payments app' Circle as it launches in UKhttp://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-bank-payment-circle-idUKKCN0X30APBarclays has become the first big British bank to form a partnership with a digital currency firm, social payments app Circle, which runs partly on bitcoin's blockchain network and launched in the UK on Wednesday.
In what Britain's Treasury called a "major milestone" in its push to make the UK the world's capital for financial technology, or fintech, Circle was granted an e-money licence by the Financial Conduct Authority, the UK watchdog - another first for a digital currency company.
The Boston-based start-up, which is backed by $76 million in venture capital and counts Goldman Sachs and investment firm Digital Currency Group among its investors, said the licence would allow it to hold users' money and to facilitate domestic and international payments.
Unlike a traditional money transfer company, however, Circle offers its users the opportunity to send not just written messages along with their money transfers, but also emojis and even animated "GIF" videos, with no charge, following in the footsteps of China's WeChat Pay and AliPay.
"The founding vision for Sean and I was that money should work the way the internet works," said Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, who founded the company with fellow internet entrepreneur Sean Neville.
"This is the thing that I think we're all learning from the Chinese: that this merging of messaging, media and payments together really makes sense to people."
Circle launched in the United States at the end of last year, and is now allowing cross-currency transfers of pounds and dollars at rates that it says are better than other money transfer services, and with no added fee. It will soon also allow transfers in and out of euros, when it launches in the rest of Europe later in the year.
But if a customer is sending money to a country where Circle hasn't yet launched, it is simply transferred into bitcoin, then transferred and settled within minutes via the blockchain network that validates bitcoin transactions. At the other end, the bitcoin is then transferred back into the currency of that particular country.
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