By Hannah Lang

(Reuters) -Crypto exchange Kraken on Thursday launched a peer-to-peer payments app that enables users to send and receive funds - in both cryptocurrency and fiat currency - across more than a hundred countries.

The move is a bid to expand Kraken's offerings beyond its digital asset trading business, and puts the firm in competition with PayPal, Venmo and Block's CashApp.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

Crypto exchanges such as Kraken are increasingly signaling an interest in expanding outside of the digital asset trading that initially became popular with retail investors. Kraken said last month that it is launching tokens of U.S. equities, called xStocks, in select markets outside the United States.

CONTEXT

Krak users will have a dedicated spend account and will be able to instantly send and request payments across 300 different assets, including crypto and local currencies, the company said in a press release. Crypto transfers will be made using blockchain technology, while Kraken will make cash transfers internally without using external banking infrastructure.

KEY QUOTE

"We're able to move money across borders right off the bat, because that's what we do from a trading perspective in our venues, and we've actually already spent over 10 years building out that system for money transmitter licenses... in all the jurisdictions," said Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Kraken, in an interview with Reuters.

"You have to do that as an exchange anyways, and so what we realized is that our customers just wanted to do more with their money."

WHAT'S NEXT

Kraken plans to launch a series of products through Krak in the future, including physical and virtual cards as well as pay-in-advance services like loans, the company said.

(Reporting by Hannah Lang in New York; Editing by Louise Heavens)