Oct 18, 2018 in Member Spotlights by DIACC
1. What is iComply’s Mission? iComply’s mission is to enable a global transition of wealth from traditional to decentralized assets without harm. We do this by providing risk intelligence, compliance data, and leveraging the unique features of decentralized technology in order to reduce the burden of compliance. Because of the way a blockchain functions, it can significantly lower the cost, the number of resources required, and time spent maintaining compliance and regulations in the financial industry. 2. Why is a trustworthy digital identity critical for existing and emerging markets? In financial services, there are really only two things that matter – the transactions and the people behind them. Blockchain can validate a lot of things – for example, whether double spending is occurring; however, blockchain is still only a data structure, meaning that you still need good data – garbage in means garbage out. We need to make sure that we are properly valuing and validating not only the assets being placed onto a blockchain but also the people who are publishing assets onto blockchains. This is extremely important. Digital identity can heavily transform the financial industry and if it’s done properly, we can enable both privacy and transparency in ways we can’t even imagine today. 3. How will digital identity transform the Canadian and global economy? How does iComply address challenges associated with this transformation? The creation of a digital identity for the Canadian economy is going to be extremely beneficial. However, if we as Canadians deploy a solution that does not interoperate beyond borders it will be a terribly expensive, and likely futile, endeavour. Canada is very trusted on a global scale and there’s a lot of good technology coming out of Canada. I believe the digital identity and blockchain technologies being created here can be used to solve some of the major problems we face globally. We focus on providing risk data and intelligence on both transactions and people. iComply is currently the world’s leading solution for risk and compliance in digital finance and crypto-assets. We provide new fintech ventures with access to the risk and compliance infrastructure that banks are currently investing billions into with a simple SaaS fee. This allows fintech innovators and forward-looking incumbents to gain significant competitive advantages in their target market verticals. iComply’s compliance infrastructure leverages market-ready technologies such as blockchain, secure identity hashing, machine learning, data clustering and more. This enables even the most cautious CCOs or GCs to effectively mitigate their firm’s risks while participating in the burgeoning financial industry of asset tokenization. 4. What role does Canada have to play as a leader in the space? Canada is doing some exciting things in both digital identity and blockchain. Our federal government now publishes every National Research Council grant to the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum itself is a Canadian born technology, we are leading the world in the move towards decentralized finance. iComply has worked closely with the Canadian government on initiatives to take this technology into overseas markets. Canada’s has an exceptional reputation in this industry and coupled with the resources and cost-effectiveness of our technology-resources, such as the cost of local, highly-skilled developers, positions us with a strong competitive advantage globally. 5. Why did iComply join DIACC? iComply joined DIACC because we saw a need to enhance the development of standards and adoption of decentralized digital identity. There are lots of ideas and conversations on digital identity happening around the world right now but through organizations such as DIACC, we are able to focus on increasing adoption, specifically as a solution for enterprise markets. DIACC presents a unique opportunity to collaborate and cross-pollinate with other Canadian innovators that are focused on action and ready to implement live enterprise solutions that can be used by both startups and established financial institutions as well. 6. What else should we know about iComply? iComply is really focused on using emerging technologies to provide compliance solutions, and as a young company, we have a strategic opportunity to not be bound by legacy or data silos. We are currently the world’s leading risk intelligence and compliance automation solution for cryptocurrencies, digital finance, and non-face-to-face transactions. We have a number of products on the market and available to both the market and regulatory agencies. Our primary focus as a company is to elevate the entire industry through enhanced transparency, trust, and integrity. iComply is focused on expanding its partnerships and reaching across the aisle, into more traditional financial institutions, to demonstrate that using distributed ledger technology doesn’t make you a criminal – just because people have used cash for criminal activity in the past doesn’t mean every cash transaction is associated with crime. In order for fiduciaries and institutional money to enter crypto-asset markets they need tools to manage their risk – this is what we enable. There is a huge competitive advantage for traditional financial institutions entering this market provided they can manage their risk, compliance and protect the identity and assets of their stakeholders. |