FinTech Monerium has secured a license from the Financial Supervisory Authority of Iceland that will enable the company to issue e-money via blockchain.
The full license is claimed to be world’s first e-money license for blockchains issued under EU e-money regulations – meaning the license reaches throughout the European Economic Area (EEA), as well as external jurisdictions subject to regulatory approval and destination country regulations.
“Receiving an e-money license is a major milestone towards achieving our goal of making digital currency accessible, secure, and simple to transact,” explained Sveinn Valfells, CEO and co-founder.
“To support our e-money issuance, we have developed a digital banking platform that is compatible with all leading blockchain protocols and extensible to other clients and financial services. Our platform is based on open standards and designed to support decentralised financial applications.”
In the release, Monerium alluded to Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision of online peer-to-peer currency transactions to a regulated form of digital fiat currency.
Founded in 2015 by a team with backgrounds in banking tech including central banking, finance, blockchain, and cloud services, Monerium has received seed investments from ConsenSys, Crowberry Capital, and private investors.
With the firm’s mission of “making digital currency accessible, secure, and simple to transact,” Monerium believes using blockchain for e-money purposes supports Nakamoto’s vision whilst also removing the need for intermediaries and provide the ability to automate financial transactions across many sectors.
Jon Helgi Egilsson, co-founder, chairman and former chairman of the supervisory board of the Central Bank of Iceland commented: “Monerium e-money encompasses the benefits of programmable money on blockchain, in addition to being the closest form of central bank money there is – based on a proven EU regulatory framework.”
Monerium is currently entering closed beta with initial customers and partners. The company plans to partner with distributed application developers and blockchain platform providers to make e-money available to consumers and enterprises across borders and protocols.
