Cryptocurrency is a fast-growing topic of conversation in today’s financial and digital world. The crypto market, with almost $2 trillion in circulation, is now taking the shape of a service platform to support rising transaction volume. In simple terms, crypto-as-a-service means providing the digital infrastructure to businesses necessary for cryptocurrency transaction/trading (buying, selling, or investing) done by their retail or business clients.
This as-a-service solution makes it easier for banks, merchants, financial services firms, and other related businesses to offer a wide range of crypto services to their customers. Consequently, customers get to enjoy the benefits of broad access to the digital assets industry without having ambiguity or guesswork.
Growing Crypto Demand: Key Driver behind Crypto-as-a-Service
The crypto-as-a-service solution provides merchants, banks, and brands with a unique opportunity to satisfy an increasing demand for cryptocurrency and payments flexibility. The digital assets markets, particularly crypto, are continuously becoming very popular among consumers to conduct transactions and exchanges. It is no surprise that according to Visa, $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency was spent by consumers globally on goods and services through their crypto-linked cards in the first half of 2021 alone.
The supporting research keeps finding more proof of this trend; a recent study found that 48% of people in the US purchased cryptocurrency in the first half of 2021. Meanwhile, in another survey, 40% of people across different geographies plan to use cryptocurrency in the next year, in addition to 77% of millennials agreeing to use crypto if they understood it better.
Benefits of Using Crypto-as-a-Service
- New Revenue Streams: Financial institutions always seek new ways to appeal to young investors, and try to introduce unique financial solutions for their customers. By offering crypto services in their existing mobile apps or platforms, businesses can add new revenue streams to stay ahead of the competition.
- Increased Market Share: By embedding cryptocurrency capabilities into their financial platforms, businesses get the opportunity to capitalize on the trend for crypto-asset demand. Companies should see this as a gateway to enter a growing market without high overheads impacting their desired margins.
- Reduced Compliance Overhead: The crypto-as-a-service provider performs know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) checks and compliance, resulting in faster speed to market.
Use Cases of Crypto-As-A-Service
- For Central Banks: Crypto-as-a-service can be the best use case for launching the required tools promoting easy adoption of digital currencies. Central Banks across the globe are either planning, or have already introduced, their country’s own digital currencies. But many Central Banks, that may want to launch digital currencies, are experiencing obstacles due to a lack of resources. Such Central Banks can adopt crypto-as-a-service, meanwhile steering a smooth transition from fiat to digital currency.
- For financial service firms: Firms in the investment brokerage domain can start offering cryptocurrency trading services on their platform using crypto-as-a-service. This is particularly useful for investment advisory firms as it allows them to expand into newer investment products for customers, thus opening newer revenue streams.
Nium Has Launched the World’s First Crypto-As-A-Service
Nium’s Crypto-as-a-Service offering allows financial institutions to add in-demand capabilities for cryptocurrency investment. The cryptocurrency investment services will support five cryptocurrencies in the US in 2021, with the list of supported currencies growing to 20 in 35 countries in 2022.
Through one API connection to its platform, clients can embed capabilities to buy, sell, and hold crypto, all supported by Nium with KYC, regulatory and compliance monitoring, brokerage, custody, and processing of the cryptocurrency. These initial offerings will be followed by a roadmap of additional crypto services, including stablecoin wallets and crypto payment acceptance. Start building your crypto capabilities by becoming one of the first businesses to access this service.