Puerto Rican FV Bank, a U.S. licensed global digital bank that offers a suite of traditional and digital asset banking and custody services to fintech, cryptocurrency, and blockchain firms, as well as digital accounts to direct customers, is launching its first application programming interface (API).
Dual-licensed FV Bank is one of its kind: it’s the first bank to offer companies a hybrid solution — matching integrated traditional banking services including payments with the upcoming ability to hold fiat and digital assets in the same account and the facility to seamlessly convert digital assets to fiat currency. In other words, it aims to offer multi-currency checking accounts and crypto in one solution, which is very unusual.
Basing itself in Puerto Rico was a crucial part of this idea because the Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions of Puerto Rico is open to merging blockchain and banking. Also, FV Bank can issue Visa debit and credit cards not only to U.S. clients but Latin American ones too.
From the corporate clients’ perspective, this is a huge deal: multi-asset accounts solve a series of potential risks for family offices, funds, exchanges, and other types of financial firms. There will be no more moving assets around and the operational risks that come with it. Companies will be able to maintain money and crypto within FV Bank, and, when needed, make the conversion of one thing to another inside FV Bank.
Founded in 2018 by payments veterans Paschini and Nitin Agarwal has raised a Series A round last year. The $8 million funding led by BnkToTheFuture, Decentralized Ventures, NFG Fund, CCIX Global, Zenrain Technology, and Satvat, and increased FV Bank’s estimated valuation to $48.9 million.
“We founded FV Bank, to foster growth between banks and fintech creators,” said Miles Paschini, co-founder and CEO at FV Bank, in a press release.
With our API FV Bank, clients can create compliant banking experiences directly with a bank partner instead of using an intermediary Bank as a Service (BaaS) provider. Our goal is to vertically integrate and provide the regulatory and compliance functions of a bank and also deliver the tech solutions directly to our customers
Miles Paschini, co-founder and CEO at FV Bank.
The new API will enable FV Bank’s clients to reduce operating costs and scale their operations through automating data flows and payments systems (including ACH, domestic wire, international wires, and internal transfers). When creating beneficiaries and payments, exemplifies FV Bank, compliance functions automatically run in the background including sanctions screenings to ensure anti-money laundering compliance. The new API also provides real-time webhook notifications for incoming and outgoing payment and transaction reconciliation.
By 2022, FV Bank aims to expand its product suite to include interest-bearing products and B2B lending services, while aiming to achieve $750 million to $1 billion assets under management.
