Irish-founded payments company Stripe is diving back into cryptocurrency with a partnership to overhaul identification verification and user fund lodgements for crypto exchange FTX.
Stripe's technology will enable FTX users to purchases cryptocurrencies with debt cards and automatic clearing house transactions directly from their bank, and FTX will also implement Stripe Radar, which uses machine learning to protect against fraud.
FTX estimates that $14bn worth of assets are traded on its platform every day, and with the Stripe partnership, it said it is turning its attention to the broader consumer investment community.
“We want FTX to become a trusted mainstream brand,” said Tristan Yver, head of strategy at FTX. “We’ve partnered with Stripe to help us transform what could be unintuitive crypto experiences into ones that exceed consumer expectations.”
Yver said FTX integrated Stripe technology into its platform in days and that "Stripe’s developer documents are a pleasant surprise compared to what we’ve worked with in the past.
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"The [optimisations] we made in our payments setup with Stripe deliver the smooth on-ramp experience FTX’s growing customer base demands. We’re able to multiply revenue by making it easier than ever for people to invest in crypto."
FTX said it has "significantly reduced" the number of rejections for people signing up to a platform, and the verification process can now take place in real-time, whereas before it took up to a week.
"We’ve recently overhauled our user onboarding process, and we’ve partnered with Stripe to bring their automated ID verification system to FTX,” Brett Harrison, president of FTX US, said. “We’re seeing greatly increased speed of KYC processing, higher rates of automated approvals, and a smoother UX for our customers.”
John Collison, co-founder of Stripe, tweeted that the San Francisco and Dublin-based company was open for business with crypto and Web3 companies, who can use its respected fiat payments API integration to process transactions.
"Stripe now supports crypto businesses: exchanges, on-ramps, wallets, and NFT marketplaces. Not just pay-ins but payouts, KYC and identity verification, fraud prevention, and lots more," he wrote.
The moves comes shortly after the company, founded by Collison and brother Patrick in 2010, announced it was hiring engineers and designers in the US to "build the future of Web3 payments".
Stripe became the first major payments company to allow bitcoin in 2014 before withdrawing its support four years later, saying the largest cryptocurrency was an assets to be traded, rather than a means of exchange, and therefore less useful for payments.
FTX, which also offers derivatives and options trading, has experienced rapid growth over the past two years and has also raised $1.8bn (€1.6bn) from backers including Temasek and SoftBank
"Stripe is working with many of the most exciting projects in Web3 and supporting the world’s leading crypto brands. FTX is a great example of this," Will Gaybrick, chief product officer at Stripe, said of the deal.
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order compelling the US government agencies to assess the risks and benefits of creating a central bank digital dollar, potentially expanding the use of virtual currencies within the American financial system.
The value of the leading cryptocurrencies surged following the announcement, which was interpreted as a major win for the crypto sector amid continued efforts to bring the technology into the mainstream.
Photo: Stripe founders Patrick (left) and John Collison. (Pic: Getty Images)
