Citi, Nordea Select Bitcoin Compliance Firm for Accelerators

By November 27, 2015Bitcoin Business

accelerator, startup As global financial institutions become more interested in bitcoin and blockchain technology, some are beginning to invest and work with startups they believe will empower them with the tools to one day engage with the industry. Today, this means partnerships like that between UK banking giant Barclays and bitcoin compliance startup Chainalysis. The two companies announced in October that Barclays would work with Chainalysis, a graduate of its New York-based FinTech accelerator, to allow its financial crimes division to better understand the technology. Now, there are signs that this partnership may be the start of a larger strategy that could be embraced by major banks. For example, Israel-based bitcoin compliance startup Polycoin was recently accepted into two incubators, one backed by financial services giant Citi and the other by Nordic banking conglomerate Nordea . Speaking to CoinDesk, Polycoin CEO Alfred Shaffir indicated that he believes partnerships with compliance startups will be a necessary first step for any bank seeking to become more active in their work with the technology. Shaffir told CoinDesk: “We feel that the moment [banks] start working with the blockchain, they will need a compliance tool.” Polycoin touts a full solution for blockchain compliance, with Shaffir noting that the firm wants to become the NICE Actimize for bitcoin, a nod to the digital financial crime prevention tool founded in the late 1990s. The startup was selected to be one of 10 participants in the Nordea accelerator this October, and was chosen out of 170 applicants . The company is also simultaneously participating in the Citi innovation accelerator, its fourth in Israel. Timely pivot Originally founded as a bitcoin payment processing startup in 2014, Polycoin pivoted this summer amidst the overall downturn in consumer bitcoin spending. “Bitcoin impacted our decision. We understand that there was […]

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