Coinbase has been in the news lately for getting on the wrong side of both customers and regulators, but the cryptocurrency exchange made a different kind of headline on Monday when it said users in the United States will now be able to deposit their paychecks directly into their online accounts.
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The announcement appeared on a blog by Max Branzburg, Coinbase’s vice president of product. He said the feature will be launched in the “coming weeks” but did not specify an exact date. Customers can get paid in crypto or U.S. dollars and choose any percentage of their paychecks to deposit.
“With direct deposit, customers can more easily access our crypto-first financial services and be ready for any trade or purchase,” Branzburg wrote.
He also announced that starting this week, holders of the Coinbase debit card will be able to spend U.S. dollars as well as crypto while earning crypto rewards. Another new feature is that customers can now earn new rewards in three coins: 1% back in Dai (DAI) or 4% back in Amp (AMP) or Rally (RLY). The card already allowed them to earn 1% back in Ethereum (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE) or Bitcoin (BTC), or 4% back in The Graph (GRT) and Stellar (XLM).
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The launch at least temporarily takes the focus off of a recent string of bad news, including customer complaints that frequent transfers from their bank accounts to Coinbase are time-consuming and inconvenient, CNBC reported.
That’s not the only complaint lodged against Coinbase, which went public in April and boasts more than 68 million users in over 100 countries. As previously reported by GOBankingRates, the platform has received thousands of complaints in recent years for a pattern of account hacks where users have reported money vanishing from their accounts. Customers have also griped about poor customer service when they try to contact Coinbase support.
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Meanwhile, earlier this month, Coinbase went into defense mode against federal regulators when it was threatened with legal action by the Securities and Exchange Commission over the exchange’s proposed loan product, Coinbase Lend. As GOBankingRates reported, Coinbase received a Wells notice from the SEC indicating that it intends to sue the company over the product.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong countered by accusing the SEC of “sketchy behavior.”
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Coinbase Expands Banking Services by Letting Users Deposit Paychecks Into Their Accounts
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