Coinmotion advances its mission to make cryptocurrency more accessible with Checkout.com

Coinmotion is the leading cryptocurrency broker in the Nordics. Its focus is on bringing crypto to the masses with easy-to-understand and transparent crypto solutions and services.

Founded in 2012, it's one of the oldest professional service providers in Europe. Over the years, it has served over 150 000 clients worldwide with brokerage, custody, payments & cards, crypto-lending, and crypto-credit lines.

Esteban Sadurni, Director of Digital Assets & Currencies, Checkout.com spoke with Heidi Hurskainen, CEO at Coinmotion, to learn more about the organization and its partnership with Checkout.com.

How has the crypto space developed overall in Finland in the last five years? And how have the services provided by Coinmotion helped drive that growth?

We've witnessed a complete shift from the professional service provider’s point of view in the past five years. The 2017-2018 bull market brought the industry under the regulator's spotlight. Subsequently, financial authorities globally have introduced some level of regulations to the space to curb some of the negative byproducts of the industry expansion, like unauthorized investment offerings and fraud.

This resulted in local registration requirements for professional services providers like Coinmotion in Finland back in 2019. Similar legislation has followed gradually in each EU member state.

Coinmotion was among the first to adopt these regulations. We also strengthened our regulatory compliance by acquiring a separate Payment Institution License from the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority. With this upgraded regulatory status, we can serve our clients better and bridge the gap between traditional finance and crypto.

To the uninitiated, the crypto space is remarkably complex. Coinmotion seems focused on cutting through that complexity by offering its customers an intuitive platform and clear investment options. Why has Coinmotion chosen to follow that strategy?

Heidi: Our audience is changing a lot. Early adopters of crypto were okay to forgo an easy user experience just to be 'the firsts'. However, as more people become comfortable with crypto and web3, our user base is becoming more varied. We serve small retail clients to private banking and institutional investors.

This 'mainstream' audience has different needs and expectations from the early adopters. Specifically, they demand a seamless user experience, transparency, and safety. If companies don’t make crypto easier for more traditional users, crypto will remain a niche technology for the technically proficient.

So the core of our value proposition is to make the experience of investing in crypto as easy as possible. We do this through the design of our app, which makes it simple for clients to keep track of their portfolio. We also offer a wide range of educational and advisory services around taxation, portfolio management, investment strategies, or technical questions about crypto assets. Our clients value this service highly.

Another key aspect of building that experience is focusing on the fiat to crypto on and off-ramps. That’s where Checkout.com comes in.

You’ve recently partnered with Checkout.com to process global fiat deposits for your customers. What were you looking for in a payments partner?

Heidi: A partner that could help us speed up the euro deposits for our clients from their debit or credit cards. In the Nordics, people use their online banking credentials to pay for everything. However, in many other European countries, credit cards are people’s preferred payment method. So not having credit card payments in those countries made it harder for us to activate those clients.

Why did you ultimately decide to work with Checkout.com?

Heidi: Checkout.com’s position as one of the most reliable card processors supporting the crypto industry was the key reason we partnered with them. Checkout.com understands our industry inside out; its support and onboarding have blown our expectations. They have been easy to work with, and the integration was faster than expected. We have witnessed many hurdles working with other payment and financial companies during the past ten years, and Checkout.com turned out to be the opposite.

How have your experiences been working with Checkout.com thus far? Please discuss the integration process, use of the technology, and the support from the team?

Heidi: The whole process from onboarding to integration took only a month in total from Checkout.com’s side. And its support for integration-related or any general questions was available all the time. The integration process is well documented, which is still somewhat rare in most cases, so our technical team was not left without proper guidance at any point in the process.

Coinmotion will soon also be using Checkout.com’s Card Payouts solution to make payouts to its customers in the EEA over the Visa Direct rails. Tell us why you’ve decided to leverage Card Payouts and the benefits it’ll bring to your business and its customers?

Heidi: If we look at the practices of funding and withdrawing fiat currency from cryptocurrency service providers, we have instant deposit options almost everywhere in Europe, whether card payments, SEPA instant transfers, or PSD2 initiated instant payments.

The options are much more limited when it comes to withdrawals. Clients usually need to wait one or two days to get their withdrawals. Checkout.com's Payouts solution will greatly improve this situation by offering our customers high-speed, low-cost withdrawals.

What does 2022 have in store for Coinmotion?

Heidi: We see 2022 as a continuum for 2021 rapid growth of the cryptocurrency industry, so we are excited about the year and the opportunities ahead. We are scaling up our core services to make them even more accessible to clients. And we're excited to have Checkout.com as a partner on our journey.  

Learn more about how Checkout.com is powering the world’s leading crypto businesses.