13/9/2019 – Arival Bank, a Singapore-based fintech bank has exceeded its crowdfunding target of US$864,000 on fundraising platform Crowdcube as it is poised to enter the growing digital bank space.
Its pre-Series A funding round attracted more than 300 investors and was oversubscribed at US$2.3 million, landing the startup at a pre-money valuation of over US$14.8 million. Lead investors in the round were New York-based Seedinvest and United Kingdom-headquartered Crowdcube.
Founded in 2017, Arival Bank is a digital bank that seeks to be crypto-friendly. It was founded on the notion that banks around the world are rejecting accounts of crypto-related businesses as they are fearful of any collateral ramifications to holding these types of accounts.
To solve this problem, Arival has designed an account for a customer base of users rejected by other banks. It will target e-residency businesses, expats, and refugees, cryptocurrency and blockchain-related businesses, politically exposed persons, and digital influencers.
“We partner with some of the hottest fintechs on the market to deliver a full suite of financial products and tools hand-picked to help run your business. Anything from corporate expense cards, international transfers, factoring, lending, savings, and much more.”
At FinovateAsia event in Hong Kong in 2018, the startup also introduced ArrivalOS, an open API-powered digital banking platform that offers third party fintech solutions such as bank accounts, money transfers, debit cards, mobile point of sale and factoring, and SME loans.
The firm has built its own compliance technology, A.ID, which will use facial scanning and compliance with the US Federal Reserve Bank.
The Singapore-based startup said that while it is not yet a bank, it has applied for a US-based International Financial Services Act (IFE Act) banking license and is on track to receive the license this year.
Besides, the digital bank has also applied in Lithuania (EU) plus sandbox app in Malaysia, with the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, and Dubai in the pipeline.
“The underbanked SME industry is a combined trillion-dollar industry. Freelancers, startups and SMEs present a real demand for banks, which has yet to be met. This is a relatively untapped market. It is likely that innovation in the SME space will continue to grow, which means more of these businesses and entrepreneurs will be seeking forward-thinking fintech partners to meet their banking needs.”
Funds from the Crowdcube and SeedInvest campaigns will be used to continue the growth and development of the Arival platform.
