PlatinumDEX building a regulated exchange for the unbanked

0:00I'm Ashton addison from event chain for investmentpitch media and FinTech news network and today on blockchain interviews we have Alexander Rogan the CEO and founder of platinum decks Alexander thanks so much for taking the time to come on the show it's a pleasure to have you here likewise Ashton thank you very much for the invitation it's good to be here yeah

0:20great to have you if we could kick off the interview by getting a little bit of background on platinum decks there are many crypto exchanges that are out there but I believe platinum decks does bring things to the market that others don't could you explain that a little bit yeah sure I mean firstly we really believe that crypto currency is going to help the

0:38world increase available funding when that happens it's going to drive more investment that we more spend on business increase in disposable income quality life's going to go up we're opening the doors to money for billions who are blocked by the present day banking system both in the developed world analysts developed to get there it's critical that the cryptocurrency

0:59market is free from criminality and fraud so we're going to leverage our success in providing you know high-level high level security bring that to the crypto ecosystem and attract large number of users large number of customers both to crypto and to our internet bank blocks to internet banking are virtually identical to those stopping mass adoption crypto we we took

1:26a first principles approach to building our business yeah so we really looked at it from the ground up and came up with a methodology so we could really provide some sustainability and growth so we've got purpose we're going to build a powerful brand or eco-friendly we're going to develop very good relationships with our clients and that's going to be

1:46built on trusting transparency and you know we're all about continued continual improvement that's great and you mentioned there that there are very similar barriers to entry between traditional banking systems and the cryptocurrency as well and I read that Platinum Dex is looking to go much beyond just being a crypto currency exchange and trading platform you're

2:07looking to revolutionize a banking for the unbanked and underserved so could you explain a bit more on how are you going to take that approach yeah sure revolutionize it's the its new what new ways saying we're being disruptive banks are resistant to change they're not agile they're proven unethical don't invest in new tech they've been scraped dragged screaming into chip-and-pin and

2:33that's been out there for like twenty years they really pay lip service to the regulators until they caught they stopped innovation they stopped companies growing they even use algorithms to discriminate against social mobility which is just crazy and they're we're different we're going to launch our noncustodial wallet app it's an almost instantaneous method of

2:55transferring crypto on Apple and Android initially it's going to be fifi free we've got projections of over 250,000 users in the first 12 weeks so we really we really think that's going to drive some some interest following the app we'll bring out the exchange then we look launch their license Bank we'll bring out the card we'll have fee free payments these are services that

3:19are really needed at the moment because of the very difficult climate everybody's in in the first instance we're going to hit the market in Europe we've got 300 million people there but also not not forgetting there are two and a half billion people worldwide who are lacking the basic banking services so there's financial instability in these places amongst those who've got

3:40the least capital and least resources Financial Inclusion will open up banking in places where the limited access to the branches as an example yeah so the primary access to a lot of these people is going to be violent mobile device which is perfect for us because we're going to be able to connect them in a very secure manner and we've got really stringent kyc ATF and AML processes you

4:06know your client anti-terrorist funding and Ed's money laundering now those things actually are very good because if we can verify somebody who doesn't have an address at the moment we can actually not just bring them into banking but we can bring them into the world itself yeah and give them a proper digital identity so by doing that and we're going to

4:28move whatever roadblocks are there to to stop them coming into the world so using blockchain now increases transparency reduces corruption towards all transactions against the distributed ledger can't be manipulated so prevent fraud or theft it's good news mm-hmm and that's great to be following kyc AML practices for the safety and security you also touched on a security

4:52being a major factor and through precedent security of crypto currency exchanges especially is very important to keep the funds and the data of the users secure and that goes for a banking as well and I read that Platinum Dex is focused on some of the highest levels of security if you could elaborate on do you have any special methods or practices that you are following to

5:14ensure this high level of security I'm gonna tell you all of it yeah now you know I can't answer that yeah so but our our approach to security means that we're building something without a single point of failure is really important so we ensure that every component every action every location every member staff every every process that were involved in goes through a

5:37rigorous evaluation assurance checks at every stage of the development of the exchanging associated products it is critical we've got the most highly experienced security staff in the ecosystem without a doubt we've got access to a mix of sophisticated high-grade security technologies it gives us market advantage which no other crypto Exchange can match a crucial

6:00differentiator between us and the other other markets other exchanges that are out there no other exchange was built with security as the primary motivation our view security must be all-inclusive it's central to the business and it's got to be in place from the get-go mm-hmm yeah and it's interesting that when you're targeting the underbanked and the underserved

6:21they often may not have the proper identification and you need to go through those kyc procedures to be able to verify their identity do you have fraud protections in place or is it just the KYC and AML partners that you're working with to be able to easily identify people without having to go through a million different hoops it's a mixture Ashton I mean we're

6:48working very closely with a partner organization and we built in like a seamless and relatively painless process of identity verification yes that we're very careful checking verification of potential clients but also we've built in machine learning and AI into the platform so we are continually measuring everything that's going on so if we see something unusual in the name of one of

7:15our existing clients we may think that something's gonna rain maybe you know maybe they're being coerced into doing something or maybe they lost something I don't know you know we don't know which but we've got checks and balances in there using some very high-tech watching everything that's going on all of the time but it's everything's a balance yeah we need to make sure that we're not

7:36helping the bad guys but at the same time we're trying to make it an easier transition for our clients and our supporters I think it's it's only it's in everybody's interest it was successful in helping clean up the industry and I think we've got the right balance yeah definitely and we're moving towards more regulated environments and it can depend on which jurisdictions the

7:56exchanges are based in so if you could elaborate on you know what is the jurisdiction for platinum decks and why is it important that you're located in these specific locations yeah sure well we're based in the city of London our aim is to have individual licenses all of the jurisdictions that were stab established in starting with the European Union then Switzerland and then

8:17the UK but look there's a vast difference between the application of law and enforcement of regulation between London or zero can save a letter or the Cayman Islands all jurisdictions have problems yeah I mean let's not kid ourselves yeah whether it's London or elsewhere but we've chosen to be work somewhere where our moral and ethical stand can be seen where the rule of law

8:42is practice we will be highly transparent from the beginning which is a million miles away from most of our competitors who want to be based in the shadows yeah that's not for us being in London being in Zurich being mainstream embracing the the legislation that's coming taking a moral standpoint it proves that our strapline you know

9:11trust integrity and security actually means something it's not something that was dreamed up by a by a marketing team so I think I you know are positioning the fact that we are in London we're not in a an obscure shady tax haven says an awful lot about our business and where we want to go with it definitely and I agree London is a great place to have an

9:33exchange and I'm glad to hear that and a lot of those countries that you mentioned they're working through regulations of cryptocurrency exchanges on the regulated side but also with this pandemic that's just happened there's been a lot of volatility and fluctuations in the traditional markets and that could be causing hyperinflation with traditional currencies as well and

9:57part of the adoption strategy for exchanges is getting people the awareness and attraction to a different form of you know financial monetary system you know do you have a specific time line or do you foresee changes throughout the countries that you're targeting that may be more towards attracting cryptocurrency in terms of time line I think we're you know we're

10:23probably slightly behind the curve because it's already happening I mean take up in Asia and South America is huge it's the fact that crypto is volatile but you're absolutely right yeah I mean look at what's happening in in Venezuela and similar places I mean you know the the citizens there are caught between a rock and a hard place if you go further back you look at what

10:46happens when the government is compared to take your citizens money like in the sovereign debt crisis you have examples like Greece and Iceland Russia you know where because there's a problem the government goes into the bank account just takes the money out or some countries governments economies have just run straight into the ground so it's no under that people will push into Bitcoin

11:10and the other alternative currencies so it's not just corrupt countries that were embracing digital currencies yes do you know that there are over 40 countries looking at developing or already have developed a digital currency in Japan it's all business is legally obliged to accept protection I was listening online today about the Chinese digital currency it's inevitable

11:34it's coming out now probably this year and I think the only thing that's delayed it was the pandemic even the stade ever so traditional Bank of England is looking at it the u.s. is investigating the digital dollar controlled by the Federal Reserve Facebook and it's Libre project yeah and how easy would it be for Amazon to introduce its own currency here's

11:57it's definitely happening and it's it's picking up momentum yeah I mean it's just like literally every month something's coming along it's making me really you know really interested in getting our project moving yeah times are changing quickly and it's interesting that you mentioned Amazon because I was researching through Platinum Dex and I saw that you've

12:18developed a solution all in-house as opposed to a lot of these other platforms that are using cloud-based solutions like Amazon could you elaborate on the choice behind that yeah for sure I mean a lot of our competitors are on public cloud yeah we're not yeah we chose to develop something a solution inhales why it's about control total and absolute we'll never give up the physical control

12:43of our service it's not an option we demand immediate access to the physical server so hosting in houses it's the only option and in our great experience and we've been doing this a long long time public cloud providers will minimize their own risk about the clients as values now because we're doing it ourselves our clients come second to nobody and you don't see the

13:04US Treasury outsourcing Fort Knox there yeah it's a US Army and a thousand tanks surrounding their gold storage facility it's not AWS and it's not Microsoft so this and they wrote there are other reasons as well but Security's first and foremost but one of the advantages we've got is as it's ours and we are managing it ourselves all the time then we can

13:27support our business as we need to high performance computing puts huge demands on on computing power and storage workloads process faster more efficiently in-house that out of doubt especially if your actual workload requires bleeding-edge share hardware as else does so we're able to make sure that we're always ahead of the curve we're up up to speed without being

13:49dependent on third parties and that ensures that we'll be scalable and we won't get caught out like you saw some of the exchanges did a few years ago where they just had to stop yeah well you look sounds like you're ahead of the curve and speaking of down the road and you know in the short term I was looking into the Platinum Dex security token that's being built within the platform

14:14I'd love to know more about what is the underlying technology regarding the security token and what is the purpose for it within flattened X well the token pts yeah will be used to pay for services on the platform the obvious example will be paying for Commission fees yeah so when we create each security token is underpinned by blockchain and smart contracts so

14:40software algorithms program the PTX functionality in its features the tokenization takes place is that PTX is fractionalized as a digital unit and then it's issued onto aetherium so that's the token here in-house our blockchain is very different we use permission blockchain creates a permanent ledger record of all and any change any attempts to change so if

15:01parts of the business that require real-time security they've been monitored all the time so the block and the block chain will be on a permanent feed to our auditors so we're protecting our customers from the so called insider job so you know we're using blockchain in two distinct ways but both equally important very cool and if the viewers and potential traders are looking to

15:26learn more and follow along with platinum decks what's the best way for them to learn more and to reach out well in the first instance go visit calm and you can sort of read all about us you can get some details on the team which makes very interesting reading if it's from an investor perspective because we are actually looking for a seed funding at the moment yeah we're

15:50very very interested in talking to people who would like to come and buy in buy an equity and take part in what promises to be a very exciting and disruptive journey on the website we have the pitch deck and the one-pager and there are email links through to me as well if anybody wants to reach out have a conversation of you very great I will leave those links in the

16:15description box below for the viewers and that's all the time that we have today Alexandre but I really appreciate you coming on speaking about the environment in which you guys are growing in and I'm looking forward to following the growth of platinum decks so let's follow up in the near future it's been an absolute pleasure Ashton thank you for having me thank you very

16:33much bye-bye