Keytom, a neobank centered around digital assets, has announced its launch.
The Dubai-based company said its goal is to introduce “a new era of financial management by organizing all digital assets in one convenient location,” according to a Tuesday (April 9) news release, targeting people and businesses in the traditional fiat and cryptocurrency space.
“At its core, the company champions financial empowerment, positioning itself as the ‘one bank for all digital assets.’ Keytom’s vision lies in dismantling financial barriers and uniting fiat and crypto domains within a cohesive framework accessible to everyone,” the release said. “The neobank’s clients can oversee their funds via a unified interface accessible through web browsers or a mobile application.”
For now, Keytom said it offers investment strategies and transactions in cryptocurrency and USDT, with plans to introduce swaps and fiat options shortly. Once crypto/fiat payments become available, Keytom’s will shift towards offering collateral loans, staking and cashback services, near the end of this year and early 2025.
“As cryptocurrencies continue to gain prominence in financial markets, we’ve dedicated significant efforts to integrating them into our services alongside traditional banking solutions,” said Eugene Krasicki, the bank’s founder and CEO.
As PYMNTS wrote earlier this year, many industry observers in the crypto space believe — in spite of the sector’s rocky 2023 — that blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies could potentially revolutionize financial inclusion for marginalized and unbanked communities.
This can be done, for example, by removing barriers, such as a lack of digital identity, for underserved communities.
“Identity is required for participation in basically any system or network, but particularly for high stakes and highly regulated financial networks,” Ajay Rajani, vice president of expansion and crypto at Tala, said in an interview with PYMNTS, who added that blockchain technology lowers that obstacle to participation by allowing anyone to transact on its decentralized network.
Unlike traditional banking systems, which often require things many people cannot meet — minimum deposit sizes, credit history and proof of address — blockchain-based assets allow marginalized populations to bridge the identity gap hindering their financial options.
“It creates a great a conceptual unlock,” said Rajani, who added that lower transaction costs not only allow blockchains to replace transactions that already happen on fiat rails, but also enable “entirely new classes of transactions” to take place in safer, digital non-cash formats.
