Koibanx, a company that is celebrating 8 years offering solutions based on blockchain technology and asset tokenization for the financial system in Latam, accounts for this evolution and growth. Today they have more than 1 billion dollars of tokenized assets in different Blockchain protocols, working with 8 on-chain banks throughout the region, with clients such as Banco Abank, Banco Atlántida and Banco Davivienda in El Salvador, to mention a few.

In addition, in 2021 the government of El Salvador chose Koibanx to implement not only the entire Lightning Network payment system for Chivo Wallet, but also to build the banking connections and the national registry system on Algorand Blockchain.

"The market and finance evolved, blockchain technology is in a maturing stage where incumbents in the financial sector are embarking on understanding how they can innovate with these solutions, now is the time for collaboration and we are already starting to notice the integration of the best of both worlds with banks and technology companies operating under the guarantees of the regulatory framework. It is time to understand the potential of linking traditional finance to innovation. This is the path that will make it possible to truly energize the economy and generate greater financial inclusion", said Leo Elduayen, CEO and Cofounder.

"Web3 technology evolves financial services, eliminating borders, reducing friction, increasing transparency, generating automation through programmability and this is where we really see that a financial system that enjoys these benefits and virtues can increase financial inclusion. Through our platform, clients offer innovative, more efficient financial products and/or offer web3 capabilities to their end users, which amount to a range of between 10 and 20 million depending on the activity they present".

Thus, technology together with blockchain developments are expected to change people's experience in their financial transactions:

3 TRENDS FOR THE COMING YEARS

• Interoperability: interoperability in payment rails or transactional rails is something that, pushed also by Open Finance regulations, is taking more and more weight. There is a growing trend in which we will see that money and account balances will be interoperable between financial institutions and their products. Mexico pioneered this, Argentina followed. We see that El Salvador and Colombia started to do so as well.
• Tokenization of the real economy. The economy will become more dynamic and investments and transactions will diversify thanks to the possibilities already offered by the tokenization of goods and services such as real estate, works of art, raw materials, energy, etc. In addition, this reduces costs and increases transaction efficiency, which will facilitate the trading of illiquid assets and access to larger investors. The concept of "programmed money" will be used frequently.

One possible use, for example, would be tokenizing the rent of a property through a smart contract or paying in a store through a QR code.

• Crypto acceptance + multiple payment channels: In the beginning, the card was the payment or value transfer channel par excellence, but today it is being complemented and made compatible with account-to-account transfers, from chatbots, a mobile app or web. Wallets began to shape it, but it has even evolved to contactless payments or QR payments. We are going to see multiple channels to access our balances, whether it is money or investments that we will be able to transact through interoperable rails and making them compatible with the crypto world.

KOIBANX: Leading Tokenization

An example of this is one of their most recent developments: n1u, a digital wallet for the young segment of video game lovers, which they made together with one of the main banks in Argentina, in which Koibanx provides technical and regulatory payment infrastructure in 3 countries simultaneously.

This wallet offers all kinds of products for users, from withdrawals and deposits, transfers and payment solutions such as QR, buying and selling cryptocurrencies, cell phone recharges and even contracting streaming services.

KOIBANX: LEADING THE WAY IN TOKENIZATION

In a changing market for fintechs and technology entrepreneurs within the crypto and blockchain ecosystem, Koibanx positioned itself as a leading company in the region going through 3 rounds of funding, in the most recent one raising almost $20 million. Also, the size of the company grew to almost 80 employees with offices in 4 countries.

"Our vision is to transform the region's financial system by launching and integrating our platform in the most relevant financial institutions. Latin America has more than 10,000 financial institutions, our goal is to reach at least 1% of them", said Elduayen.

The company has a presence in Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador, Uruguay and Mexico with a view to expanding to the rest of Central America, focused on enabling the tokenization of financial assets. It also plans to gradually open its APIs by the end of 2023 or early 2024, to enable tokenization in a simple way for all developers without having to acquire web development skills3. Along with these achievements they add:

• Tokenization of 6 different types of assets: commodities, financial securities, fiat currencies, cryptocurrencies, securities and documents.
• Integration of 7 different Blockchain protocols (Algorand, Ethereum, RSK, Bitcoin, Lightning Network, Hyperledger, Polygon).

Translated by: A.M