Cashaa, a crypto bank and exchange app, today announced that it has raised USD 5 million from Dubai based O1ex, a blockchain investment and advisory firm. Cashaa is a crypto-friendly bank app based in London. Previously, Cashaa had raised USD 33 million during the token sale in 2017.
As a part of its expansion plans, Cashaa is all set to launch its app for India. With this, it hopes to pave the way for a crypto-friendly banking system for the country where services will be regulated under the Reserve Bank of India.
With this, Cashaa plans to tap into the growing crypto user base in India. At Cashaa, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Cashaa coin, Ethereum, and Tether are part of its banking system like the US Dollar, Euro, Sterling Pound, and possibly Indian Rupee soon. More cryptocurrencies such as Ripple, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and EOS will be added in 2021.
As Cashaa is handling huge amounts of AML and transactional data on crypto-currencies related to banking transactions, it can enable regulators to understand the industry better and help it develop a positive outlook towards the industry. A feat, Cashaa projects to repeat in India as well.
Speaking on the occasion, Kumar Gaurav, CEO & Founder, Cashaa said, “India has tremendous potential in its fintech sector. We believe that the next big evolution in the Banking and Crypto space can actually happen from India. Hence, we have been actively working on developing products, working on our infrastructure, and recruitments to power our entry into the Indian market. Apart from India, we will also tap into the African and Caribbean market.’
Cashaa will also be using part of the funds to patch the July 2020 Bitcoin hack that occurred at its Delhi OTC. Though the attack did not affect Cashaa’s operation directly, yet the leadership took it upon itself to resolve the issue and ensure the confidence of the users who lost their Bitcoins. The loss stands restored now and all funds are SAFU. During this process, a lot of global investors had approached Cashaa with investment proposals, but Cashaa in the end accepted the one which enabled it to patch its users’ loss and enabled it to target its growth in India. It is also important to highlight that during the July hack, Cashaa responded swiftly to the incident, reported the matter to the competent authority, and was continually working with authorities and those affected. Cashaa has also reiterated that the hack had not impacted Cashaa’s operation, which had remained secured as the attack was on personal systems and was termed as a “one-off case.”
Kumar further added, “Cashaa’s prime objective is to ensure that its users always felt secured and hence we immediately used our expansion fund to cover the loss in India. By doing this Cashaa not only set an example to the crypto industry. By doing so, Cashaa also became the second company that did not pass the loss of a Bitcoin hack to its users. Binance too had introduced SAFU, which they have used in the past to cover the loss due to the hack in which Binance lost 40 Million USD, but none of the users got any haircut. This decision to rescue our users has not only helped us gain interest and confidence from the fund managers and VCs but also has made the industry sit up and take notice about our commitment to keeping users’ interest at the core.”
Cashaa’s growth story
In the recent past, despite multiple regulatory challenges, Cashaa has managed to onboard hundreds of crypto brands, enabling them to run their operations. Also, the companies last quarter’s onboarding rate grew to 83.16% for crypto businesses from its initial 17.5% in 2019.
Cashaa is now overlooking massive amounts of transactional data coming from crypto companies that enables them to build an AI for transaction monitoring for AML. This has given the regulators comfort to allow Cashaa to build its own banking system. Also, this data has given us a huge competitive advantage compared to any bank/financial institution which intended to bank the crypto business.
