iQotation: Budget Insight’s Aggregation Service for Crypto Assets
The French FinTech Budget Insight introduces iQotation and plans to let their customers handle crypo-assets from their wallet. An API platform and white-label solutions should see the day in 2019 for FinTechs and banks interested in featuring crypto-currency trading services. Budget Insight bets on institutionalising a trend which reached this market months ago.
Budget Insight has been relying on a partner to craft iQotation since last April. This platform is expected to launch early next year and should first display APIs enabling banks and FinTechs to include their white-label trading offer.
To start with, four features will be available: access to an aggregation service for crypto-wallets (providing the users with an overview of all the crypto-assets they hold through a single portal, which remains barely possible today), compare exchange prices and transaction fees, optimise order-placing and transaction processes (purchases and sales on third-party platforms).
This first step will also involve a funding round (Budget Insight aims for €800,000). Then, iQotation will be including other services: investment consulting (building on AI-based automation as well as human expertise) and decision-support tools. A BtoC app will also be developed to assess end users’ interest in these tools. iQotation is expected to charge installation costs for relying on their APIs and to apply a yearly subscription fee (based on the number of users). Transaction fees will also apply once the exchange platform available.
Comments - Standardising the market for crypto-currencies
A month ago, Fidelity sent a strong signal to the market when they launched a trading platform for crypto-assets, highlighting that virtual currencies were eventually being considered as investment vehicles by institutions. Budget Insight bets on this “standardisation” to craft their white-label offer. They believe that, despite what long seemed like reluctance, financial institutions have been undertaking steps to meet customer demand and competitive challenges. Some industry players, including Revolut, started adding trading services applied to crypto-assets a while ago helping them gain momentum. Other players, such as SolarisBank with Blockchain Factory, already introduced offers for crypto-currency start-ups.
Budget Insight first intends to rely on their expertise in data aggregation, as well as on an offer absent from the market for now, despite high demand as investors have at least two or three crypto-wallets they might need to centralise. The FinTech also plans to solicit their 130 BtoB customers to help launch this new offer. Their current position and business model will be reproduced, through betting on a BtoB-oriented approach and using the BtoC app as a test environment (as with their Budgea app).