6 FinTech Startups Taking Advantage of Blockchain in 2018
If Financial Technology is at the forefront of disrupting traditional banking and financial systems, then it could be argued that Blockchain is at the forefront of FinTech.
Below we take a closer look at 6 blockchain-based FinTech startups that have been founded or are significantly moving forward this year …
1) ThinkYoung
Aimed at industry, the ThinkYoung Blockchain framework was developed over 3 years and focusses on smart contracts and supports digital assets, notarization, credit enquiry sharing, equity transactions, and other applications.
It also provides newbies and Blockchain veterans with an easy to use sandbox DAPP environment to get their own solutions off the ground.
ThinkYoung Technology’s founders in Beijing boast that their platform is easier to use and faster than rival Ethereum and has been further optimized for safety and efficiency with functions outside of the Blockchain.
The company was recently one of the semi-finalists in the Fintech Awards in Luxembourg
2) Circle
Circle, which has actually been around since 2014, took a big leap forward this year with expansion across Asia and the further development of its services.
Marketing itself as a comprehensive “peer-to-peer payment app” the Blockchain based platform allows users to easily send payments to anyone, between currencies and countries. The unique messaging feed between users also adds a social element to the app and you can easily do group payments when everyone is logged in or lend/borrow money between friends.
What’s more, at the moment it is completely free, with no exchange rate markups or fees.
Ironically, despite being built on Blockchain it no longer supports Bitcoin as a currency.
3) PayKey
Incorporated in Israel, PayKey is aimed at banks as a solution to the rise in P2P payment providers. The blockchain-based platform integrates with social media apps like Messenger, Twitter and WhatsApp, giving them mobile payment functionality without the need to use a separate social feed like Circle.
They also offer a white label solution to banks, incorporating PayKey into their own existing mobile banking apps.
This means fewer steps for users at every level.
Banks already utilizing PayKey in various forms include NationWide, ING, Garanti, Santander, and BBVA.
4) Bitpay
This year Bitpay, which is the largest blockchain payment provider, completed its $40 million series B round of funding and continues to expand into new regions and form new strategic partnerships.
For example, they recently teamed with Bithumb to connect businesses between South Korea, Europe and the United States. Then there’s Sharps Pixley of London who is now using Bitpay to let customers convert their gold into Bitcoin.
It’s strength, however, remains in its core service of providing a bitcoin payment processing solution to merchants, which now sees more than $3 billion in monthly transactions. Things got even easier for users in 2018 with the BitPay Visa Card.
5) TenX
One of the first crypto debit cards on the market, the Singaporean based TenX wants to make “Sending money as cheap and seamless as sending a WhatsApp message,” and they’re not far off.
Their card works just like any other card at the point of sale, but it is linked to the user’s crypto wallet. This is instantly converted into whatever fiat currency they require at the time.
TenX was also the first startup to incorporate Ethereum into their platform, in that users can store their deposit in Ether
6) Swissborg
SwissBorg is disrupting the wealth management and financial advisory industries, which has typically been elitist and expensive, by offering a transparent blockchain-powered ‘crypto’ wealth management solution that uses smart contracts and AI.
It predicts that Bitcoin and others are here to stay and that users will need their holdings managed and invested all the same. This will be done with help from their machine learning algorithms and ‘swarm intelligence.’
Every contributor to the community is rewarded in tokens and the community decides which projects the Swissborg platform invests in. CHSB token holders will also have priority access to all products launched by Swissborg.
Although it is still relatively early in Blockchain’s lifecycle, these startups and ones like them give us insight into the future of FinTech. Do you think they will be successful? Let us know in the comments below!
