XREX, a blockchain TradeTech company serving cross-border businesses operating in emerging economies, today announced the launch of MyXchange, a digital currency exchange-as-a-service (EaaS) platform.
MyXchange allows money transfer organizations (MTO) to run a secure crypto-fiat exchange that features full KYC, AML, liquidity, wallet security, and fiat (US dollar, Indian rupee) on-off ramps. In the same way Shopify makes it easy to launch an online store, MyXchange simplifies creating a secure exchange, passing along low fees with seamless cross-border escrowed payments across emerging markets.
XREX is backed by venture capital firms AppWorks, WI Harper, BlackMarble, and CDIB (TWSE: 2883), along with Taiwan’s National Development Fund and Skype’s co-founders Toivo Annus and Jaan Tallinn.
As oil prices fall, according to an earlier Bloomberg report, “the Nigerian government’s coffers have emptied after crude prices plunged in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic,” and “Nigeria’s foreign-currency shortage is squeezing the life out of Africa’s biggest economy.”
“A lot of the members can’t access the amount of dollars they need from the banks,” said Eke Ubiji, executive secretary of the Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises. “That is constraining business.”
Financial Times also recently wrote about this African dollar shortage issue: “Nigeria imports the vast majority of its raw materials and goods, and companies across the spectrum, from big conglomerates to small manufacturers, are being hit,” said Muda Yusuf, head of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the country’s largest business lobby.
“Some of [our members] said they were about to lose their credit lines,” he said. “Businesses are likely to go under, if some of them have not already gone under.”
The dollar crunch has caused most banks to avoid these high-volatility markets, making it difficult for merchants to secure letters of credit or credit insurances. It’s also caused the invoice-to-pay processes to become even more slow and risky.
The XREX MyXchange fixes this situation in one simple, SaaS-based, fully auditable solution. Licensed Money Transfer Organizations (MTOs) / Money Transfer Services (MTSs), Money Service Businesses (MSBs), and digital currency service providers can help mitigate these issues by using MyXchange to launch their crypto-fiat exchanges. Until now, these MTOs have had to either outsource this technology or build it from scratch.
Building an exchange in-house requires tremendous resources to find and pay liquidity providers, custodians, KYC providers, AML providers, and cybersecurity providers, as well as convince banks to serve as fiat on-off ramps. Outsourcing to an “exchange managed services (white label) provider” often requires an investment of over $1 million.
“Much like building an e-commerce website was a lengthy, expensive undertaking at the turn of the century, developing an exchange is an onerous process today,” said Wayne Huang, CEO of XREX. “More MTOs see the advantages of offering their own suite of digital currency services, and MyXchange provides tools to make it easier than ever to deploy a full-service exchange.”
XREX has seen significant traction among global MyXchange alpha testers, including merchants and MTOs in India, Africa, and the Middle East. The B2B global payment volume is projected to reach $63 trillion by 2026, driven by a rise in the availability of new payment options.
Emerging markets’ increase in crypto adoption, Decrypt has given MTOs new opportunities to help enterprises and merchants securely and efficiently send money across emerging markets. With MyXchange, XREX provides all of the technology needed for MTOs to facilitate international trade finance, whether it’s serving cross-border commodity trading or providing fiat bridges for offshore dollar banking.
At launch, the following trading pairs will be available in cryptocurrency:
BTC, BCH, ETH, XRP, USDT, and in fiat: USD, INR.
