By Evelina Lavrova
The pandemic has been a wake-up call for those in need of alternative financial options. One company that is rapidly making inroads into this important market is Zumo, a U.K.-based cryptocurrency wallet and payment platform.
On the heels of their new debit card partnership and launch with Modulr and Visa, Gokhshtein had a chance to interview company CEO Nick Jones. He offered some insights about consumer benefits, company’s roadmap, emerging trends in blockchain space and many other things.
Asked about what consumers can expect from Zumo’s new debit card, Jones responded:
“The launch of our debit card in partnership with Modulr and Visa is a big milestone for our customers as well as for team Zumo.We started building Zumo in July 2018 and looking back we have achieved a lot in that time.”
Jones says that Zumo believes in bringing the benefit of decentralisation to everyone, everywhere by making cryptocurrencies available to everyone.
“We're certain the future of payment lies in blockchain. This is why you see central banks announcing their CBDCs.”
He adds that as we advance toward new technologies, there is a need for advanced mediums of payment, such as the Zumo Virtual Visa debit card.
“The combination of the Zumo Virtual card and soon the Zumo Convertible debit card (the physical form), with the app allows our customers to get comfortable with crypto by using their Zumo card for purchases in the real world.”
In terms of other new developments on Zumo’s roadmap over the next 12-18 months Nick shared:
“We are expecting a time of exciting new developments including a yielding solution that provides an alternative to the depressing saving accounts we now get with traditional banks.”
Zumo also recently launched ZumoKit a B2B solution that accelerates the access of blockchain and cryptocurrency to everyone.
“We are helping Fintechs, and institutions cater to the demand of the modern consumers, with our crypto-as-a-service platform — a fully compliant, robust, out of the box solution.
Nick noted that the pandemic impacted progress in terms of these aims:
“The pandemic has definitely increased users' awareness of, and interest in crypto. We have seen rapid growth in user numbers and trading volume on our exchange.”
We asked Jones about emerging trends which he believes we’ll see around blockchain advancement as economies across the world begin to reset from the pandemic. Here’s what he had to say:
“Blockchain technology has the potential to shrink the poverty gap, increase financial inclusiveness, reduce corruption, and enable decentralised access to value-creating assets.”
With respect to Central Bank Digital Currencies, he offered this assessment:
“The trend we see from where we sit is that Central Banks announcing their project to launch Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), connect to the blockchain and roll out blockchain based solutions. We believe that the recent pandemic and its fallout, reinforces the argument for cross-border, blockchain-based, self-sovereign identity standards for individuals which will tie into the evolution of CBDCs.”
And he continues:
“The pandemic has been a wake-up call for many people doing more research about cryptocurrencies and blockchain. People are looking for alternative financing options to make their money work harder for them. So I believe we'll see more companies put their effort into developing decentralized finance solutions for yielding and lending.”
