Prasos, a Finland based cryptocurrency brokerage and exchange services firm has obtained a payment institution license through the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority (FFSA). The news was being declared via an official announcement on a crypto exchange website on June 12.
As per the announcement, Prasos has now become the third company to obtain the payment institution license in Europe. As per the website, Prasos runs a crypto exchange, a crypto investment platform and Bitcoin (BTC) ATMs.
PIL allows Prasos to provide additional fiat currency payment services for users of the crypto investment platform Coinmotion and now it supports fiat payment services in other European Economic Area countries that consists of EU member states such as Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway.
The license will enable Coinmotion to work together with banks and traditional financial institutions with ease, and expand its abilities relating to the traditional fiat money.
Prasos has acquired Helsinki-based Coinmotion for an undisclosed amount in 2016. It also runs other crypto exchanges such as Bittiraha.fi, and Bittimaatti, a Bitcoin ATM network based in Finland.
Heidi Hurskainen, Managing director of Prasos said,
“The process for acquiring the licence has lasted almost 1.5 years, during which legislation on the EU level has become clearer. We have been developing our business and processes strongly. I am very happy that we have reached this point and received the Payment Institution Licence.”
In one announcement, Prasos expects its plans to register under the FSA as a virtual currency provider as per the new Finnish legislation which came into practice from May 1, 2019.
Henry Brade, who is the chairman of the board of directors at the Prasos said that the firm has earlier lost some of its bank accounts "due to unregulated nature of the whole sector."
He further added,
“With this licence, we have, as the only cryptocurrency operator in the world, gained a customer fund account from a Finnish credit institution. As a payment institution, we also believe in the possibility of deeper integration with the banking sector in the future.”