French customers will now be able to invest directly in cryptocurrencies, the company said in a statement.
The eToro trading platform announced on Friday that it had obtained registration as a digital asset provider (PSAN) with the AMF, joining the 37 other PSANs including the cryptocurrency giant Binance.
Requested a little over a year ago, this registration allows eToro to operate in France for digital asset custody services and the purchase and sale of digital assets, can we read on the site of the AMF.
“Clients in France will now be able to invest in more than 70 cryptoassets, by buying the underlying asset or buying as a CFD (Contract For Difference),” the company said in a press release.
French clients will be able to invest directly in cryptocurrencies thanks to this registration. Indeed, until now, French clients who wanted to invest in these assets had used CFDs.
On its site, eToro indicates that CFD trading “allows you to trade an asset by entering into an agreement with eToro to reproduce market conditions without buying the underlying asset”, specifying that “non-leveraged cryptocurrency transactions buy (long) are collateralized by real assets and sell (short) leveraged crypto trades are CFDs.” To simplify, with a CFD, you buy a financial security which is supposed to replicate the price of an asset (here a cryptocurrency) but you do not actually buy this asset (here a cryptocurrency).
“France is an important market for us and we are delighted to be able to offer our French users direct investment in digital assets. eToro’s goal is to make investing accessible to as many people as possible and we fully support all regulatory measures that protect retail investors without excluding those who stand to benefit the most, or stifling innovation,” said Emmanuel Sackmann, eToro Regional Director France.
Founded in 2007, eToro boasts 27 million users across the world and allows trading of all kinds of financial assets. Like many neo-brokers, eToro claims a “zero commission” offer. Yet, if we look in detail at its fee policy, it charges cryptocurrency CFD trading from 0.75% and also charges overnight fees for extending its position for more than one day (“ CFD positions that remain open overnight incur minimal fees relative to the value of the position,” eToro says on its site).