South Africa's Standard Bank Running Bitcoin Pilot Internally With Switchless' Integration
Switchless is a start-up firm that is hoping to allow traditional financial institutions to bring bitcoin to their existing customers, and at FinovateEurope 2014, the company showed off a pilot of their product being run internally at Standard Bank of South Africa. Switchless' pitch: "Our proprietary modular enterprise software allows for partial or full integration into existing financial infrastructures, giving financial institutions maximum flexibility for the unique and complex requirements they face." The company's software currently offers the following modules: Brokerage: Buy and....
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This week, it was reported that South Africa's Standard Bank was running a trial of Switchless' software that allows traditional financial institutions to integrate bitcoin storage, banking, and merchant services. It was unclear as to whether or not this trial would extend to customers, but we're learning now that it will not. A spokesperson for Standard Bank said that the internal trial was exclusive to the bank and limited to 8 individuals of the bank's staff. "No customers participated in the pilot," said the bank. The idea was to try and offer innovative financial solutions to....
Representatives from Standard Bank say that it has finished testing the Switchless bitcoin trading platform, and that it will not be made available to customers. The bank said the test is part of wider research on "Internet-based financial services", and that eight internal Standard Bank employees participated in the completed pilot. A company called Switchless says it has developed a "fully operational and integrated bitcoin portal system for a large multinational bank", currently being run as an internal pilot. The news leaked out after the system was showcased at Finovate Europe 2014,....
South Africa-based bitcoin software firm Switchless has purchased the largest bitcoin exchange on the continent for an undisclosed sum. Switchless, which is based in Stellenbosch, snapped up BitX less than a year after the exchange was founded. According to Switchless director Marcus Swanepoel, his company bought the exchange, which is also based in Stellenbosch, for its team in what he described as an "aqui-hire" deal. BitX's team consists of three people, one of whom is former Google engineer Timothy Stranex, who co-founded the firm in February. The team brings Switchless's total staff....
In an interesting interview with CNBC's Nancy Hulgrave, Peter Smith, the CEO of blockchain.info, claimed that around 100 banks approached his company to integrate bitcoin and the blockchain technology in their banking systems. Peter thinks that these banks believe that they can benefit and make more profits via integration of the blockchain technology. Banks Vs The Blockchain Technology: Throughout the past couple of years, some international retail banks have tried to integrate the blockchain technology into their banking systems and some have even gone far enough to consider issuing....
A Blockchain research arm of a bank in South Africa has said the technology could take up to 40% of banks’ revenue if it becomes a global standard. South Africa ‘Will End Up with a Blockchain’. Speaking at the Gordon Institute of Business Science Wednesday, Rand Merchant Bank’s (RMB) Farzam Ehsani said that blockchain “calls institutions to a new....