On its own, this win is reason enough to celebrate. But put it alongside our rapid growth in monthly payments volumes – which have doubled since January of this year (we now process $2 billion annually) – there's clearly something very exciting going on.

The benefits of distributed ledger technology for payments

From a business' perspective there are many good reasons for integrating distributed ledger technology (DLT)into finance operations. For one, it reduces reliance on intermediaries when, for example, settling payments across borders. Second, as a digitally native offering, DLT payments are near instantaneous, and therefore provide CFOs and treasury officers with much greater control and transparency.

But for DLT to truly be valuable to enterprises, then the supporting infrastructure needs to be up to the task. Last century, Visa and Mastercard invested significant amounts of time and money building the rails for moving money around the world. The infrastructure has been incredibly successful, but it is now showing signs of age.

Modernising payments and banking for the digital age

We're building the next generation of international payments infrastructure, one that will support both digital and fiat currency transactions with an agile, digital-first model. Our central thesis is that in time, all payments will interact with DLT in some form. Whether it be central banks exchanging value with Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), stablecoins replacing RTGS and SWIFT infrastructure to connect local payment schemes around the world, or consumers holding stablecoin forms of their local currency with their bank. 

With the BVNK platform, 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 DLT into their products and services without in needing to become regulated. 

Our ambition is nothing less than to enable a generational shift in  payments, and that, of course, requires funding. We're therefore incredibly grateful to have received the financial support of backers including Tiger Global, The Raba Partnership, Avenir, Kingsway Capital, Nordstar, Concentric, and Base Capital among others. But more than providing the financial muscle we need to move into new markets, accelerate the acquisition of regulatory licences, and support the expansion of product capabilities, this investment is a strong show of confidence in our vision for the future of corporate finance.

Making the future happen

Since industrialisation, the world has seen time and again that even deeply embedded infrastructure can and does get rapidly displaced when a better alternative comes along. Whether that's from canals to railways for the transportation of freight, or from ships to aeroplanes for transoceanic passenger travel, or even the shift from postal network to telephony for long-distance communications. Today we're witnessing the shift from legacy, fiat-only cross-border payments rails to a digital-first future. It's a once-in-a-generation shift and we're proud of our role in bringing it about.

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