Estonia’s E-residency program, has taken a step forward with a new offering from Change, a Singapore and Estonia-based company. Change is building a marketplace offering seamless access to numerous financial services within a single platform, as well as a spending card. The company is going to conduct an initial coin offering (ICO) on 16 September to fund the creation of this first decentralized bank. They are piloting with the use of digital identification through the e-Residency programme by the Government of Estonia.
“Digital Identity is one of the keys to solving financial inclusion so we are delighted that Change is using our secure government-backed digital identities to help solve this issue and develop their business.” — Kaspar Korjus
“We live in a time where for almost every single service a bank offers, there is a Fintech company that utilizes state-of-the-art technology and a lean & mean team to provide a better, faster and cheaper service. This isn’t a forecast, this is today,” says Kristjan Kangro, CEO of Change. The company focuses on nailing one specific service, be it transfers (Transferwise), payments (Stripe), investing (Smartly) or insurance (Oscar).
Powered by blockchain technology and crypto currencies, Change’s marketplace will allow a user to select between various specialized Fintech service-providers, all within the same app. To ensure a seamless experience and operational efficiency, all service-providers are connected via an open API. By using crypto currencies, Change can surpass drawbacks of existing financial infrastructure.
In order for the marketplace to be regulatorily compliant, Change is building a multi-tiered standardized KYC (Know-Your-Customer) utility. Users won’t need to present extensive information to simply sign up for the app and get a crypto payment card. However, “to use regulated Fintech services, you’ll need to verify your identity” says Kangro. Estonia’s e-Residency conducts a thorough background check, while also having a very strong potential customer-base to offer services to.
In the recent months, several new developments have occurred for e-residents, including the possibility to have an access to borderless business banking, thanks to e-Residency’s partnership with the Finnish fintech company Holvi. With Change’s marketplace for individuals, e-Residency will soon be able to offer a full suite of fintech banking services to e-residents.
Change’s initial coin offering is taking place on 16 September and will be open for 30 days or until the target of 200,000 Ether is reached.
E-Residency offers the possibility to open and run a global EU company fully online from anywhere in the world. Estonia is the first country to create a borderless digital society for global citizens by providing e-Residency. Everyone can apply for this transnational government-issued digital identity and benefit from the e-Residency platform, which is built on inclusion, legitimacy and transparency.
E-residents can: open a company within a day and run the company remotely, apply for a business banking account and payment card, conduct e-banking, use international payment service providers, declare taxes, and sign documents digitally. All of this can be done fully online, without the need to hire a local director. E-Residency does not provide citizenship, tax residency, physical residency or the right to travel to Estonia or the EU. So far, more than 22,000 people from 138 countries have applied for e-Residency and together they manage more than 3,000 companies.
Source – PR Newswire
