Litecoin Moves Into Banking to Bridge Gap Between Cryptocurrency and Traditional Finance
The Litecoin Foundation is partnering with TokenPay Swiss AG, a decentralized and self-verifying payment platform project. The agreement transfers TokenPay’s 9.9% equity stake in WEG Bank AG, located in Germany, to Litecoin, establishing the world’s sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap as a fintech leader bridging the gap between old financial structures and the new digital economy.
TokenPay was originally approached by WEG Bank in December 2017 in a bid to find robust fintech solutions for the new economy while also offering traditional services to its existing real estate client base. TokenPay’s banking platform was a suitable fit because it connects crypto and fiat services, offering liquidity and merchant solutions while maintaining AML, KYC and German banking discretion laws.
The Litecoin layer creates leverage for cryptocurrency in the banking space as the partnership aims to drive more modernized banking mechanisms.
TokenPay intends to use Litecoin’s “high-level blockchain mechanization capabilities” to maximize the performance of its blockchain, its cryptocurrency TPAY and TokenPay’s eFin decentralized exchange and the EFIN coin.
Despite WEG Bank being a traditional financial institution, CEO Matthias von Hauff affirms the logic behind the partnership. “We have thoroughly and diligently examined the prospects of a common future, and we became convinced that the future of banking will make adoption of such modern payment methods inevitable.”
Litecoin’s technology will also benefit TokenPay’s asset management and structured financial products, WEG Bank’s consumer debit cards and its Multisignature Transaction Engine for processing fast and secure crypto e-commerce payments for merchants.
While industry innovator Ripple is growing its network to connect banks, payment providers and digital asset exchanges in order to integrate its products for efficient cross-border payments, the Litecoin-TokenPay-WEG Bank partnership signifies an evolutionary step in the mainstream adoption of decentralized cryptocurrencies because it expands the ways in which banks can interface with decentralized technologies.
“This partnership is a huge win-win for both Litecoin and TokenPay. I’m looking forward to integrating Litecoin with the WEG Bank AG and all the various services it has to offer, to make it simple for anyone to buy and use Litecoin. I’m also excited about Litecoin’s support in TokenPay’s eFin decentralized exchange,” said Charlie Lee, Managing Director of the Litecoin Foundation.
