The digital revolution has fundamentally changed society, bringing unparalleled levels of efficiency and transparency to a number of different industries. While many areas of the world are accelerating onwards, one of the foundational components of our modern infrastructure is lagging behind.
The financial world, at large, is stagnating, as a select minority of exclusive corporations and investment bankers control the power and set all of the rules. Regulations, governed by the ‘premier’ few, are designed to protect incumbents, occlude disruption, and maintain the status quo.
As a result, we have seen very little technological or developmental progress in this sector. And given the nuance and complexity of financial processes, a number of players are suffering to stay afloat. Across countries and specialized services, there is no unified system of record for consumers to manage their personal finances. Rather, each element (banking, investing, etc.) is siloed, forced to take on challenges of scale independently.
Many of these players rely on legacy architecture to run and manage their day to day operations. Not only is this an inefficient practice, with enterprises spending an incredible amount of resources, but it also makes for an extremely negative user experience. If you have ever interacted with a financial institution, or even worked for one, then surely you can empathize with the frustration in dealing with high fees and loads of uncertainty in and around the space. There are a number of compounding effects of this “pyramid” power structure.
Perhaps the most alarming consequence of this elitist, centralized structure is that today, in 2017, there are over 2 billion adults who do not have any access to modern financial services. They do not have a place to store their money. They cannot access loans to fund their business ventures. They do not have opportunities to make investments.
Clearly, this is a global issue, dramatically affecting all parts of our international supply chain. And without much transparency into how the financial sector plans to branch outwards, it is hard to predict exactly how soon developing countries will be brought up to speed.
Another layer of complexity, threatening the stability of the current monetary system, is that alternative currencies and assets are gaining prestige. Digital assets, like cryptocurrencies and virtual collectibles, are soon to be ubiquitously recognized as forms of payment and value. The problem is that the current ‘stock trading’ ecosystem is not constructed in such a way to support the transfer of alternative assets.
The NAGA Group AG is a FinTech company, recognized as the fastest-growing German initial public offering, that is developing a single, decentralized cryptocurrency architected specifically to solve for these issues of accessibility, security, and internationalization. Effectively, NAGA Coin has become a force in creating an expansive, open crypto ecosystem.
Their wallet supports a number of verticals. For instance, SwipeStox, a component of the ecosystem, is a massive stock-trading focused social network, with hundreds of thousands of active registered users. To date, they have have facilitated over $49 billion in transactions, serving at roughly USD $4 billion monthly. Another integration is with Switex, a blockchain based platform built to support the buying, selling, and trading of virtual “gamer-earned” collectibles. They have an open integration API with top game publishers from around the globe who leverage their platform for distribution and monetization.
The biggest promise is that this brings us all closer to a more unified, transparent financial world. As the global economy becomes less splintered, it will be exciting to see how companies can leverage frontier technologies, like blockchain, to make many industries, the financial world especially, more accessible without compromising safety and security. With technology, we can reimagine traditional standards and revolutionize this multi trillion dollar space.