money_gate
Interview with John Kinghorn (Director of Partnerships) from BVNK
BVNK is on a mission to make payments as accessible and resilient as the internet, using distributed ledger technology (DLT) to build the modern rails for money movement. John and the Partnerships team work closely with introducers and referring partners, helping them to add real value to their client base by offering BVNK’s payment solutions.
What can you tell us about BVNK?
BVNK is a next-generation payments platform for businesses. We bridge traditional and digital finance to make payments borderless, fast and secure. Using BVNK, clients can move money around the world without needing to interact with the SWIFT network, accept crypto payments in checkout without having to hold crypto or change their treasury operations, and can embed distributed ledger technology (DLT) into their products and services without needing to become regulated.
Please describe your industry/main markets
Historically, BVNK has had a strong focus on remittance and B2B payments sectors; helping merchants to process cross border payments. BVNK also has clients across the online gaming, gambling and FX space.
We have grown quickly as a business and along with the evolution of our product set, we now have a wider range of clients using our payments services. We have seen increased demand from more traditional corporate sectors such as food/beverage, construction, oil & gas plus many more. Our global settlement network can help any business to move money across borders.
What is BVNK’s uniqueness in the payment industry
We are bringing digital and traditional finance together. Legacy banking systems and processes mean making payments is expensive and slow – we fix this by making fast payments and at low cost – we also allow merchants to hold fiat and digital wallets – and our emerging markets offering allows our customers to grow their business by accessing exciting new markets.
Entering 2023, we have launched our embedded payments offering to power crypto products inside regulated TradFi businesses, wrapping our existing crypto products with a regulatory outsourcing model that enables customers without a crypto license to leverage ours.
What are the strengths of BVNK?
Using our platform, businesses can send and receive payments on all major schemes and blockchain networks, incorporate stablecoins into their payment flows, and settle funds anywhere in the world.
This flexible and transparent approach to payments ultimately means businesses can expand their offering by using BVNK – time and cost are two of the main barriers that businesses encounter when making payments, we directly address those.
For international payments, our global settlement network allows merchants to make cross border payments through upgraded infrastructure using all regulated fiat-backed stablecoins. We are strong in emerging market countries where local banks do not have the systems or liquidity to help global trading businesses. As a UK EMI licensed operator, we can serve leading global businesses who require partners to be FCA regulated and enterprise compliant.
What can you tell us about the payments starting from 20’ the Covid situation
Looking for smarter and faster ways to grow is not a new concept exclusive to the payments industry – the Covid-19 period led to reflection from many businesses on their processes and ways they could make efficiencies – as we are thankfully coming out of that period, businesses want to expand and grow which includes looking to new markets – using the BVNK platform they can do all of this and more.
How does BVNK cope with regulatory complexity
Compliance is of paramount importance to us as a business – we have a strong and experienced compliance team; we are at the forefront of pushing for regulatory compliance.
We have robust, multilayered AML and transaction monitoring systems that prevent illicit activity, while our best- in-class custody keeps assets safe. We have an EMI license in the UK and a virtual Asset Service Provider license under the Bank of Spain for EEA regulation.
As a UK EMI licensed operator, we can serve leading global businesses who require partners to be FCA regulated and enterprise compliant.
What are your latest developments
It’s an exciting time for us at BVNK – we are going through a brand refresh and launching more new products this year – one of these being our new ‘Embedded Payments’ product offering – this will enable customers to whitelabel any BVNK product within their own platform. For example, merchants can enable their end customers to collect, convert, and send crypto payments without ever leaving their own platform. Using this regulatory-wrapped solution, our customers can launch any of our payment products customised in their own brand (without having any exposure themselves).
One of your services is B2B payments using blockchain, can you elaborate more about it? Is it a Crypto wallet?
Yes, our customers can hold digital (and fiat) wallets with us and have the ability to convert crypto currency into fiat currency (or vice versa) – we use blockchain technology to move funds from emerging market countries – helping them to unlock and free up working capital and cash flow; this can be a key area and constraint for some businesses.
Can you describe the 3 main opportunities in the banking & payments industry in Europe?
2 . Blockchain & Digital payments – tech evolves and improves over time – the payments sector is no different – if payments can be made much quicker and at lower cost then why wouldn’t everyone want to adopt this?
Summary
We are building modern payment rails that global businesses deserve — instant, borderless, and resilient. We believe that regulated, fiat-backed stablecoins combined with the best parts of traditional payments will provide the infrastructure needed to deliver this vision
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