No CommentsMunich-based Fidor Bank, Germany’s first Web 2.0 Bank, and Kraken are launching an initiative to establish a “specialised bank for crypto-currencies“. The initiative aims to set up a fully regulated and licensed financial services entity. The intention is to pool products and services from various providers of digital assets and to offer a wide range of financial products and other services related to crypto-currencies. Kraken, a bitcoin exchange for professionals and institutions, based in San Francisco, acts as co-creator of this initiative.
Partnerships with Kraken, Ripple Labs, and Bitcoin.de have enabled Fidor Bank to establish itself as a partner within the environment of crypto-currencies.
“As a bank regulated in Germany we are pleased to be the first point of call for this significant international initiative. Conversations with existing and potential new partners have strengthened our conviction in enabling a more focused handling of alternative currency initiatives, like bitcoin,” says Matthias Kröner, CEO of Fidor Bank AG. “The aim of this initiative is to establish a specialized banking platform for crypto-currencies. Products and services from various providers of virtual assets like bitcoin (e.g. exchanges, payment, trading) are to be bundled in a kind of “crypto-currency-marketplace,” continued Kröner. “We want to build a regulated and specialized banking home for entrepreneurs and retail customers who are intrigued by the idea and vision of a virtual currency system. But this, we cannot and we will not do on our own.”
Fidor Bank will provide the regulatory expertise, core banking platform, and licenses as well as the technical basis via its IT-service subsidiary Fidor TecS AG which provides the innovative modular banking, payment and community software program fidorOS. This platform is specially developed to provide support to digital customer groups, which allows the integration of third-party offerings within the framework of an open API-based infrastructure. Kraken contributes its technological know-how in safe storage of crypto-currencies, exchange and trading capabilities as well as its broad experience and network in the crypto-currency community.
“Due to the fact, that this is an open platform, competitive partners are invited to collaborate on this platform. It should be in the interest of all of us to create a network which is as wide as possible,” summarizes Matthias Kröner, CEO of Fidor Bank. “All partners will be shareholders of this platform, which also means that we will only kick it off with a sufficient group of partners and shareholders.”
“We are extremely excited about the opportunity to deepen our partnership with Fidor, to leverage the experience we’ve gained working together over the past year, and to benefit the broader crypto-currency community, industry and ecosystem. We hope that in opening up our relationship and expanding our circle of trust, we’ll see the industry grow, regulators become more comfortable, and other banks thaw out. I’m a strong believer in leading by example and Fidor have proven to be no different, which, in the banking world, makes them unique and sets them in a class above the rest. This is a huge leap forward for the crypto-currency movement.” Jesse Powell, CEO of Kraken adds.
By December 2014, Kraken, Fidor Bank and selected partners should be taking first steps in setting up the future platform.
