First Global Credit Enables Bitcoin-Based Trading On LSE

First Global Credit, a finance company completely focused on digital currency products, has announced the expansion of its offerings. Customers will now be able to invest in a range of stocks listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), Silicon Angle reported.

This means that besides offering stocks from the U.S., customers will now have access to highly traded shares from the LSE including Barclays Bank, Vodafone, Telecom Plus and others.

“The best way to serve our customers is to provide choice,” First Global Communications Director Marcie Terman said in a statement. “We already offer a good mix of tech, entertainment, internet and health care stocks and while we offer several ETFs which cover geographic growth areas like Brazil, Russia, China and Mexico, until now choices were limited to the American markets. First Global supports customers from all continents (excepting Antarctica) and it is our plan to offer equity trading from a wide range of countries starting with the United Kingdom, where we have a concentration of clients.”

The company, launched in 2014, allows users to use Bitcoin as a collateral margin to trade traditional equities. It delivers the service by using a derivative product – total return swap (TRS) – a swap agreement in which one party makes payments based on a set rate (fixed or variable), while the other party makes payments on the basis of the return of an underlying asset, which includes the income it generates as well as any capital gains.

First Global Credit also offers its customers the ability to convert their bitcoin deposits into fiat without closing stock trades.

“Until recently, it has been difficult to find any option to turn bitcoin into a productive asset,” Terman told Finance Magnates. “Our clients have a distinct edge over other bitcoin holders because they can extract profit from their capital in two ways.”