George Osborne, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, has joined the Coinbase global advisory council.

The company said Mr Osborne had joined the council as Coinbase’s international expansion strategy was accelerating around the world, having recently secured licences in Bermuda, France, Spain, and Singapore. It added that it had expanded access to its products across 20 African nations, giving millions of users access to USDC (USD Coin, a digital stable coin pegged to the US dollar) and fast, reliable, cheaper transactions.

Mr Osborne has decades of experience both at the highest levels of government and in international finance and fintech investing.

The advisory council was established, the company said, to advise Coinbase on its global strategy as it grew its reach around the world.

Faryar Shirzad, the chief policy officer at Coinbase, said: “We are pleased to have George join our council at an exciting time for us in the UK and globally.

“George brings with him a wealth of experience in business, journalism and government. We look forward to relying on his insights and experiences as we grow Coinbase around the world.”

Mr Osborne said: “There’s a huge amount of exciting innovation in finance right now. Blockchains are transforming financial markets and online transactions. Coinbase is at the frontier of these developments. I look forward to working with the team there as they build a new future in financial services.”

Mr Osborne is a partner at London-based Robey Warshaw LLP, a boutique investment bank. Before this, he was the editor-in-chief of London’s Evening Standard newspaper and was the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 until 2016 and First Secretary of State from 2015 until 2016.

As Chancellor, Mr Osborne had responsibility for the UK’s economic, budget and financial policies.

During that period, Coinbase said, the country posted the strongest growth in the G7 and attracted a rising share of global business investment.

Following the election of a Conservative Government in 2015, he also served as First Secretary of State.

Mr Osborne was a member of Britain’s National Security Council for six years and deputised for the Prime Minister on national security issues.

As a prominent campaigner for Britain to remain in the European Union, Coinbase said, Mr Osborne left the government in July 2016, after the outcome of the referendum.

He is the president of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, a not-for-profit organisation he established with business and civic leaders to promote economic development in the North of England.

Mr Osborne is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institute, and is a visiting professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where he teaches a course in decision making.

He was an adviser to the BlackRock Investment Institute from 2017 until 2021 and is the chairman of Lingotto Investment Management LLP.

Mr Osborne will join Mark T Esper, former US Secretary of Defense; former US senator Patrick Toomey; former US representative Stephanie Murphy; former Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney; Chris Lehane, the chief strategy officer at Haun Ventures; and John Anzalone, Impact Research Polling founder, as the latest addition to the council.

The Delaware-incorporated, Nasdaq-listed crypto exchange is aggressively pushing overseas in its “Go Broad, Go Deep” strategy in countries with regulatory environments amenable to crypto.

Coinbase has received two Class F Digital Asset Business licences from the Bermuda Monetary Authority, one granted in April of last year and the other in September. The former allows for institutional trading of perpetual futures, while the latter allows for retail trading.

The company is in the midst of a battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission over whether the regulator has jurisdiction over the company’s cryptocurrency activities in the US.