Infinity Chain AMA Recap with Kieron Cartledge
On February the 22nd, Kieron Cartledge, our Global Sales Director had an interesting AMA session with the Infinity Chain community. Kieron received a lot of interesting questions for which he had some very insightful answers. If you could not attend the AMA, do not fret! We have the recap below for you.
Could you introduce yourself as well as Baanx?
I am Kieron Cartledge, the Global Sales Director at Baanx Group.
I have been with the business for 3 years. My role in the business is to find partnerships such as Ledger, Akoin, Tezos and Reef Finance, as well as 20 or so other partners we have, as well as build on existing relationships.
Here at Baanx, we are on a mission to bridge the gap between fiat and digital asset technology, by providing next generation financial services that companies can utilise fast and secure assets.
Our next generation fintech solutions have everything companies need in order to launch their own future-proof financial services and crypto-friendly regulated assets worldwide.
We’re launching services for more than 25 top tier clients including Ledger, the world’s largest hardware wallet provider with 4m customers worldwide. Our exclusive partnership with Ledger allows users to convert their crypto holdings to fiat at time of purchase, and offers Cryptodraft™ with rates from 0%.
Who is the team behind Baanx? Could you tell us about them?
Our team has 10+ years of international mobile and bank tech experience: mobile banking like Revolut, Crypto.com e-wallets, smart cards, trading software, HSMs, payments, FX, and digital security.
Each of our team members is a gem. I am proud to be a part of the Baanx team:
Garth Howat — CEO.
He founded Consumer Lending & Fintech businesses. Successful entrepreneur for the last 15 years. Financial Conduct Authority approved in the UK.
Erald Ghoos — COO.
Recently joined Baanx from Binance & Crypto.com. His experience is vital for us as we’re rapidly growing.
Mark Evans — CCO/FCO.
He has 25+ years in corporate/CFO positions, including CommerzBank, UBS and JP Morgan.
Jim Yang — CTO.
Jim spent 20+ years in development, managing development teams. Many years in fintech, mobile and retail and has previously worked for Degree53 and Apple.
John Wu- (VP Cards)
25+ years in crypto, cards and banking. Set up Bitpay (largest crypto card program in the USA) from scratch, as well as Gemalto (now Thales).
Alona Dobshynska- (Chief Product Officer)
CEX.io, E&Y, banking tech- Head of product with over 6+ years experience at one of the top exchanges in the world.
Andreas Kapsos- (Brand & Communications Director Director)
7+ years in fintech + SaaS, including being employee #11 at Revolut, leading marketing & comms of the biggest regions of Revolut (southern europe) and Marketing Director at Plum.
What are some of the problems Baanx aims to solve and what solutions does Baanx offer?
That is a great question!
I am sure you will all agree that there is a gap between the fiat and crypto world. We bridge this gap by allowing users to spend crypto seamlessly on physical Visa, Mastercard and China UnionPay debit cards.
We also have fiat on/off ramps, remittance, secured lending against digital assets and other services. These are all designed to make buying, selling, and spending crypto and digital assets as easy as using fiat.
I think we are quite unique in the market, and have some advantages for users and crypto communities:
1) Faster than a bank — secured lending will be approved and money will be in your account/on a physical or virtual card in less than minutes. Assets are backed by customers’ digital assets, so this is secured lending.
2)No need for background checks for lending once the user has been onboarded. Once they are officially a user, no additional checks or fees are required to get a loan. Put simply, this is ‘one click’ lending.
3)10% LTV for BTC for free. LTV = Loan to Value. Example: for every $10,000 in wallet, we will lend $1,000 interest-free. (10% of asset we hold)
4)Cheaper — 0% interest rates when staking BXX. If they hold BXX, we will lend up to 50% LTV.
5)We charge some of the lowest load and transfer fees, and we do not charge remittance fees.
6)Another key element is accountability. Baanx is taking responsibility — we are listed on the temporary register for crypto assets under the FCA regime, access to EMIs, and a consumer lending licence in the UK.
Can you tell us about the BXX token economy and the utility in the BXX system?
Yes, of course.
I’ll start with Token Utility:
1) Stake & Earn APY — 25%
2) Cryptodraft™ Rates — Across Baanx partner ecosystem — these start at 0% APR and based on the level of BXX you hold, the LTV can be higher.
3) Cashback & Loyalty — Across the majority of the Baanx partner ecosystem, including Ledger.
BXX is the Baanx token that users can use to get these and other ‘free’ services. The more BXX they hold, the less expensive the services, such as lending, debit cards, etc.
As an example, if they hold $100 in BXX, they get a free card which they can use anywhere Mastercard and Visa are accepted. This includes cash withdrawals at ATMs worldwide.
What are the milestones Baanx has achieved and what are in the pipeline?
This is a great question, there are so many!
Here, at Baanx, we are thinking very big and ambitiously.
We have several big partnerships coming out like Tezos which is now live in 6 countries and are due to go live in a number of others over the coming week.
We also have the Ledger project (200,000+ have signed up so far!), Cryptodraft™ and our unique managed service — we will be able to push many of our services and of course, crucially BXX on critical functionality into these as well.
I would recommend that you take a look at our updated product roadmap if you still haven’t.
There’s a lot coming:
⚡️ DeFi customers go live with physical & virtual cards.
⚡️ Partnerships with DeFi & DEX projects.
⚡️ Baanx will launch Ledger and Tezos in the EEA and the US.
⚡️ Over this year we will have over 20 partnerships going live including Akoin, Euno and Reef Finance. With a view to have millions of crypto friendly cards in the hands of users.
⚡️ Followed up by the launch of Baanx cards, wallets and secured interest-free Cryptodraft in the United States.
⚡️Q3-Q4 2022 expansion to Africa and LATAM.
https://medium.com/baanx-bxx/baanx-bxx-updated-roadmap-7cf5cbb44b95
Sorry that took so long! There is just so much that we are doing here! Let’s give the channel some time to look over the above and maybe review the link.
You mention that “businesses with a vision for the future are already utilising Baanx,” but could you tell us which companies are using your platform? Also, why do only people that utilise Baanx have a “future vision”?
I love this question! You’ve probably seen our latest news. and if not do go check it out.
Let me break some of the clients down.
We have a partnership with the Tezos Foundation who are our client and investor (we enable up to 10% ‘free’ money for Tezos holders) for those staking BXX.
It’s a game-changing digital finance app built on the Tezos blockchain that enables users to save, spend, and manage their digital assets right from their fingertips. The app is available in all EU countries, excluding Germany — although we are working to get this app to EVERYONE!
We also have partnered with the Akoin project that is backed by Grammy nominated artist Akon to deliver a positive social impact to local African communities by opening up a range of financial services including dapps, wallets, cards and credit lines.
The Akoin Card, digital wallets and a range of other fintech products will allow Akoin users to convert their crypto to fiat at the time of the purchase.
There are some good pictures on the Baanx social media of Akon, myself and the Akoin team spending using the Akoin card.
Baanx have also partnered with Euno to create a white label mobile application that will allow the Euno community the opportunity to buy, sell, trade and spend Euno alongside major crypto currencies.
It will be available to users in the EEA and UK for them to order virtual cards.
We are also very excited about our partnership with Ledger.
We already have more than 300K people on the waitlist and we haven’t spent much of the marketing budget yet, so there is a lot more potential for here that’s for sure.
In fact, we are expecting a ramp up on the waitlist over the coming period of weeks.
We are in deep testing with Ledger integrations and have the first users receiving access this month (test users) with the first waitlist users expected to onboard in March in Europe & the US, including BXX. Then we’ll take it from there!
We also have the BXX available in the Nano! So you can safely store the BXX holding in one of our Partners! This cross-platform-security on the whole ecosystem.
I could go on and on… I’ll give you all time to digest some of the info above!
Do you plan to partner with world scale companies like VISA and MasterCard so that through them BAANX protocols can be globalised? What debit and credit cards are available for use with BAANX?
I think without Visa and Mastercard we couldn’t do what we do and lucky for us we are one of the few that are crypto focused: we already offer crypto friendly Visa, Mastercard & UnionPay- physical and virtual cards.
We are very crypto focused. We launched one of the first crypto friendly cards (Visa) in 2019 and sold over 600,000 cards across Mastercard & VISA. We currently ship to over 100+ countries.
Do you have Whitepaper? If yes, please share it with us. Also do you have plans for pre-sale?
Thank you for the question — We do have a whitepaper. Let me get you the link.
Just to add, currently BXX token is available on MEXC and Uniswap to buy.
Our team is working on further listing on other exchanges as well. Keep an eye on upcoming updates! 😜
Could you discuss Baanx System’s major purpose and objectives in the current economy? What leads you to believe Baanx could remain in the market for several years, and where do you anticipate Baanx in the long term?
Just keep checking our social media and news
Decentralised finance has become increasingly popular in recent times. The reason for this is simple — it provides fast and low-cost cryptocurrency transactions, without the need for any third party involvement.
DeFi has become so prominent that it’s even being hailed as a revolution by some, mainly because it offers people more freedom and control over their finances, rather than depending on banks or other financial institutions.
On top of that, it also gives people the opportunity to earn positive returns through staking and yield farming.
We’re a leading crypto provider that offers a range of decentralised services.
This includes buying, selling and sending cryptocurrencies. We also offer our Crypto Life card powered by Ledger, which people can use just like a regular card, but with crypto and BXX powering the spending.
Users can seamlessly spend their crypto assets from anywhere in the world, plus withdraw cash through ATMs worldwide.
We aim to change the way we lend and borrow money through “crypto drafts”.
Unlike the long and often complicated process of traditional loans, crypto loans are quick, easy and do not require an abundance of information, such as your credit score or past bank statements.
This is something Baanx wanted to offer, so we launched our Cryptodraft™service into our partners such as Tezos, Ledger and Akoin, which allows users to receive stablecoin payouts by collateralizing their crypto assets.
I understand that your Loans, Investment, Savings and Loyalty tool will be available soon, but could you really tell us more about the characteristics that your loans will have? Will they be exactly similar to the loans requested on centralised platforms?
Fantastic question — I am sorry it is our last for this segment.
Our Cryptodraft™ feature allows users to unlock liquidity without selling their crypto assets.
You can do this by depositing top crypto like BTC & ETH with CL, our users can access a spendable line of credit on their card.
The first 10% LTV is always 0% APR. Deposit and you start spending instantly.
The process takes 60 seconds and requires no paperwork or application process.
In short, if you stake 1 bitcoin at $50,000 you can get $5,000 of USDT at 0% APR.
If you hold BXX then you can, in the near future, be able to also have a 0% APR Cryptodraft™ of up to a 50% LTV.
You divide PIN into two categories in CL Card Mobile Management, namely Freeze and Unfreeze CL Card™, what are the functions of these two categories? What cryptocurrencies can I buy? And where can I use my CL-Card?
Freeze and unfreeze functions within the card system are for added security. If you lose or misplace your card you are able to simply freeze the card until your replacement arrives. This gives you, the users, complete control of your card.
In terms of supported assets, this differs depending on the corporation but within the Tezos app we support BTC, BCH, ETH, XTZ, XRP, LTC and a range of stable coins.
You can use the card anywhere VISA / Mastercard is accepted globally which is about 40 million locations.
How can I buy your tokens right now? And which wallet supports your token?
BXX token is available on MEXC and Uniswap to buy. Our team is working on further listing on other exchanges as well. Keep an eye on upcoming updates!
You can store your BXX within the Tezos, CL, Baanx Apps as well as Ledger or on MEXC and other decentralised wallets.
Partnerships & collaborations are the backbone in making every project more widespread. Can you list some of your partners for us?
WOW! Great question and you are correct!
Baanx partnerships are key to our success and i have listed a few but here are some more:
⚒ Ledger
⚒ Tezos
⚒ Euno
⚒ Akoin
⚒ Reef Finance
⚒ Kinesis Money
⚒ Stex
⚒ Libertex
⚒ Stormgains
There are more but I’m sworn to silence! You’ll have to follow us on social media to see the next big ones!
Do you have any whitepaper or a lightpaper? Can you tell me from where I can get more information about your project?
We do! There is lots and lots more information that can be found on our telegram group, website and social media as well as here. https://global-uploads.webflow.com/5f7ac868eff61848f2194913/619d681fa75d786fd0751247_BaanxWhitePaperFinal%20(1).pdf
Marketing awareness is important . How can your project reach a global level? Do you have an ambassador plan to promote your project? In other words, what are your marketing strategies?
Our partnerships are with global players, like Ledger. We’re working on our ambassador program as we speak. Also we’re growing our marketing team and we’re putting together a marketing plan. Stay tuned!
This was the end of the AMA with the Infinity Chain community. We really hope this provided all our new and existing members with a detailed look into everything we’re doing and planning to do at Baanx. For all those that joined us, we thank you! And to all the new members that are joining us now, we welcome you to Baanx.
