Stripe competitor Nium rolls out crypto-as-service offer

Singaporean unicorn company Nium said it will roll out a crypto-as-a-service (CaaS) offering in order to assist financial institutions.

The payment company provides cross-border payments all over the world, supporting real-time payments in 65 countries.

Born as a global company, Nium brings its network, banks and compliance expertise to help its users serve cross-border needs. Similar to Stripe, Nium’s software helps businesses to accept online payments. It also allows businesses to send money and issue physical and virtual credit cards.

The company now decided to deal with the industry in a way that it will provide turn-key purpose-built API suites for new and traditional finance companies.

Its latest offering is focused on providing ready-made tools amid a period of high demand in crypto.

15 new cryptocurrencies to be added to Nium’s service

According to the official report, the company said its new CaaS will provide institutions with “in-demand capabilities” for crypto investment and initially supports up to five cryptos.

Through an API connection to its platform, the company asserted its clients can fix crypto marketplace services, together with KYC, administrative due diligence, brokerage, processing and custody.

Nium also added it is launching its service throughout the US with a further 15 cryptocurrencies that the company plans to add to the service by 2022.

The next 25 countries and jurisdictions are expected to be supported also by next year, including Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong. Singapore has recently also proposed a green-light approach to cryptocurrency derivatives trading on domestic exchanges.

In July, Nium said it had secured $200 million in fresh funding led by tech investor Riverwood Capital receiving unicorn status with a valuation above $1 billion.

Prajit Nanu, co-founder and CEO at Nium said its “global clients are seeking more and more ways to differentiate their core offerings”.

“We offer access to modular fintech elements for payments and card issuing – and now, crypto,” he added.

He commented that there has been a glass ceiling for Southeast Asian fintech startups with much investor focus placed on richly-funded consumer tech giants such as Singapore’s Grab Holdings Inc. as well as Gojek and other Indonesian unicorns.

“That ceiling has been broken and we’re likely to see more unicorns, largely in fintech, coming out of Singapore,” Nanu said.