2021: FinClusive’s Year in Review

In March, I shared with you all my anticipation that 2021 would present exciting opportunities for growth and development at FinClusive. As we near the end of the year, I wanted to provide an update on how far we’ve come and where we are looking to drive our efforts into 2022. As we developed and deployed our Compliance as a Service (Caas) and Accounts and Payments (A&P) platforms, we have been able to achieve tremendous progress towards our broader mission of financial inclusion that takes advantage of the ongoing growth of alternative and non-bank financial services opportunities by embedding essential risk and compliance controls in tandem.

Over the past several months, FinClusive has been busy with media, events, and partnerships that advance our growth commercially by highlighting our technology deployments and our regulatory modernization efforts. I’m eager to share what we’ve been up to with all of you.

A Leading Voice on Global Financial Modernization

FinClusive has been at the forefront of conversations throughout the year on using modern financial and regulatory technology to solve pressing financial crises around the world. In September, the heartbreaking events in Afghanistan sparked a conversation about the growing use of virtual assets and peer-to-peer wallets in developing countries with unstable banking systems. I spoke to the Wall Street Journal about how app-based financial services applications present a more reliable option to many Afghans than their local currency or bank-administered accounts and payments facilities. If done securely, this could enable not only services like remittances, but also opportunities for international trade, cross-border corporate payments, and even day-to-day transactions. This use case for virtual assets is just one of many examples of financially marginalized populations that require innovative technology solutions to meet basic needs.

I also had the opportunity to speak on a panel for the Embassy of Haiti in Washington, where we discussed how blockchain technology can be used to foster trust and accountability when sending funds to Haiti to aid their post-earthquake disaster relief programs. The applications of these technologies are far-reaching in regions unconnected to traditional banking channels. These two engagements highlighted the need for safer, more modern financial tools in solving the world’s most pressing financial crises and in supporting both official development assistance and vital humanitarian assistance. It is both exciting and humbling for FinClusive to have a place in these conversations.

However, it’s important to note that the need for financial modernization doesn’t just apply to emerging economies. At home, FinClusive was excited to contribute to the National Credit Union Association’s (NCUA’s) request for information on how technologies such as blockchain can be leveraged by financial cooperatives. This presents a perfect opportunity for FinClusive’s CaaS application, which provides credit unions with compliance tools that streamline essential anti-money laundering and financial crimes compliance (AML/FCC) controls by enabling members to onboard or be validated in seconds with the application of compliance credentials provided through our CDD Check Connect. Further, FinClusive’s A&P can safely connect community-based financial institutions with blockchain networks and DeFi applications that provide alternative payment facilities via virtual assets. This can lead to increased access to modern financial products and services for their customers, digital engagement and onboarding, and enhanced privacy controls that often concern the financially underserved. I spoke to American Banker this fall about how services like ours can bridge this compliance gap in credit unions’ existing infrastructure while helping them enter the fast-growing virtual asset marketplace.

Partnerships to Expand Our Capabilities

While we’re proud of the strides we’re already making towards financial access, the past couple months have also seen some promising partnerships that will enable FinClusive to broaden our capabilities. We were recently recognized as a member of the Global Digital Asset and Cryptocurrency Association (Global DCA), demonstrating industry confidence in FinClusive’s mission and furthering our contribution to shaping regulatory policy around financial technology. This includes growing the application and reach of our Rulebook — a modernized set of global best practices to FCC that reinforces its power to shape and support more inclusive finance opportunities for the growing fintech and virtual asset services sector.

We’ve also announced new partnerships with many other emerging fintech groups:

• We continue to extend our capabilities to anchors and partners building on the Stellar ecosystem. As we see growing demand for both households and corporates looking to facilitate payments via US stablecoins, such as USDc, we have, through the last month, been able to facilitate millions of dollars of such payments with anchors in Latin America and Africa into and out of the U.S. We are growing such activities with partners such as Cowrie Exchange, Flutterwave, Pago Biccos and others. We are expanding these efforts now more robustly with Europe- and Asia-based Stellar partners; combined with our CaaS capabilities, we look forward to further multilateralizing our KYC/KYB capabilities to multiple anchors enabling all with standardized processes built to global AML/FCC requirements.
• We have initiated engagement and build with Algorand, a growing blockchain ecosystem on which FinClusive is working to extend its CaaS reach through a robust application of FCC tools that will enable others transacting within their network. Notably, the Algorand Foundation has awarded FinClusive with a grant to support these efforts recognizing the need for robust and consistent FCC tools.
• Our partnership with Celo will leverage our CaaS capabilities to enable consumers to securely fund Celo Dollar (cUSD) in Celo’s mobile Valora wallet directly from their bank accounts. We will be expanding our application to other companies building in the Celo ecosystem globally in early 2022 and are a member of their growing alliance of partners.
• Our partnership with Bonifii expands on our efforts described above with the NCUA by enabling credit unions to digitize onboarding and provide members with a verifiable compliance-banked digital credential — facilitating portability by creating a shared utility across participating credit unions. Ultimately, this will strengthen fraud and identity theft controls and extend access of this market to the growing DeFi services market.
• Our partnership with Ubisecure following our approval as a validation agent by the Global LEI Foundation will allow financial institutions to use legal entity identifiers (LEIs) for seamless, compliant client onboarding, particularly helping global entities of all types to substantiate themselves to financial services providers around the world.
• Our joint vision with Vesto further expands the reach of virtual assets and blockchain technology to enable broader banking-as-a-service (BaaS) applications by using CaaS to safely provide new consumers access to Vesto’s multi-signature vWallet. The applications are far-reaching through Vesto, and our combined CaaS and A&P applications will provide comprehensive compliance.
• FinClusive has been selected by one of the largest global clearing banks to support its build-out of a secure bridge between virtual asset and fiat payments for its treasury management and global funds transfer activities — all with embedded compliance controls.
• Our new partnership with Velo Labs will enable new remittance corridors between Asia, the Middle East, and the United States in 2022 by relying on FinClusive’s secure, compliance-embedded on- and off- ramp capabilities in the US and the unique solutions developed by Velo Labs to empower new financial institutions to bridge fiat and digital assets.

These partnerships have allowed our team to approach financial inclusion through a wider range of tools, building a network of innovative financial services that bridge traditional fiat-based banking activities with blockchain, peer-to-peer (P2P) and decentralized financial services. Our focus is to ensure that such activities embed global FCC capabilities and serve to enable inclusion in a manner that is safe, secure, and protective of the integrity of the global financial system.

Looking to the Future

We’re thrilled about where FinClusive is headed and will work to keep all of you updated on happenings just like these. In the near term, we look forward to growing with our partners while paving the way for additional product improvements and features across both CaaS and A&P. In particular, we will continue to add more capabilities and global reach to our CaaS applications to enable diligence, access to offline data, and integration of more payment types across the world that require robust-and standardized-FCC controls to successfully scale.

Innovations in financial services — especially outside mainstream banking — continue unabated, and we are pleased to be part of this exciting evolution. The ongoing digitization and decentralization of finance provides unique opportunities to support economic security to the billions currently underserved or excluded by traditional financial services. It also requires we work closely with regulators to ensure oversight and regulatory requirements are fit for a changing landscape. This blog is a great way to stay in the loop with what we’re up to and see our thoughts on current financial issues (like my piece on the role digital identity plays in supporting financial inclusion here). FinClusive will continue to advocate for regulatory compliance and policy moves that make the financial system more modern and secure. In the meantime, it’s clear to us that FinClusive is well on its way to making the rapidly evolving financial system safer and more accessible for everyone. We look forward to hearing from you and exploring ways to collaborate. Together, we can get the world truly FinCluded.