Tap bridges the gap between traditional finance and crypto

Tap bridges the gap between traditional finance and crypto

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Tap has recently secured one of the only Mastercard licenses to be issued to a company operating an app in Europe and will hope to become the one-stop shop for investors looking for a cost-effective but ultra-secure fiat on-ramp which will certainly challenge the likes of Coinbase. Other services, such as the ability to exchange crypto to crypto at the best exchange rate, and make purchases absolutely anywhere that Mastercard is accepted make Tap a formidable option.

Adoption’ has always been the last unfilled tick box for the crypto space and while this is actually happening, the kind of services that Tap offer is really going to help to speed this adoption up.

New investors into the crypto space are faced with all kinds of hurdles which for the uninitiated can seem almost insurmountable. Having to open exchange accounts and deal with the buying and selling of coins and tokens, managing wallets and all the other security elements involved — not a straightforward process.

Simplicity of use

As all regular investors in the crypto space are aware, setting up accounts on many different exchanges can be laborious. The KYC (Know Your Customer) process must be followed in order to be able to buy and sell assets and withdraw funds. This would be an extremely time-consuming process over the multiple exchanges necessary to be able to buy the required cryptocurrencies.

The Tap app gets a new user up and running in no time at all, with no need to set up exchange accounts or understand how wallets work, a new user can fund the app with their bank account and start buying crypto for fiat right away. Fees are much less than Coinbase for example, which makes Tap a fantastic fiat on-ramp alternative.

Also, an investor who wants to buy a particular cryptocurrency will have to look across a variety of exchanges in order to find the best price at which to buy. Even then, they would have to set up multiple accounts across these exchanges in order to be able to buy on the one offering that best price.

Behind the scenes at Tap, proprietary middleware searches across exchanges looking at many combinations of price pairings in order to arbitrage the best possible price for the client. At present Tap only allows its customers to buy BTC, ETH and LTC, but a raft of other cryptocurrencies will be added to these in the near future.

As well as being a superb on-ramp for fiat to crypto, Tap makes it just as easy to liquidate your crypto into fiat with just a couple of ‘taps’ in the app. Once again fees are minimal compared with the competition as the client will only pay from 0.5% up to maximum of 1.5% for each transaction.

In the pipeline, Tap is working on making further reductions possible. This will enable a client to pay fees with XTP (the Tap cryptocurrency token). An extra 25% reduction will be applied which will certainly encourage Tap customers to hold XTP, thereby giving more value to the client and the network.

Regulated and secure

Tap spent a long time in the planning/building phase and no stone was left un-turned in order to acquire all the necessary regulation that such a project needs.

Tap has the highest possible level of KYC, provided by industry leader W2 Global Data. Add to this the highest level of PCI DSS compliance which all Tap partners have achieved. Also, the fact that no sensitive customer data is stored by Tap means a huge potential pit-fall is completely avoided.

Security of customer assets is taken care of by storing them offline in multi-sig cold wallets that have the highest possible security grading. In addition, Tap’s partner Bitgo insures the cold-storage funds up to $100 million.

Two worlds of traditional banking and crypto entwine

What we do is combine the legacy of traditional banking with the allure of the crypto market to allow customers to access their crypto and use this as an additional method of personal finance.”

Arsen Torosian, Tap Founder/CEO

The holy grail for a payment provider such as Tap is to provide a service to customers that allows them to switch in and out of crypto and fiat effortlessly in the most cost-effective way. Tap looks to have risen to this challenge by providing exactly that. The ability for a customer to fund their account in seconds is the first part.

To be able to then buy any of the supported cryptocurrencies immediately is the next part. To then swap any of these cryptocurrencies for any other in 3 seconds and to be able to swap back into fiat at will completes the challenge.

This coming together of traditional finance is even further strengthened when you consider that you can even use your Tap card to withdraw cash from any ATM and choose to make this transaction with any of the cryptocurrencies held on your account.

Finally, when abroad a Tap card holder can convert their native fiat currency into the local currency (as long as it is supported). There is no commission incurred as long as the card holder stays within certain amount limits. These in turn will depend on the level of card that the client has, which presently are fixed at £1000, £3000 and the top unlimited level.

The future for Tap

Tap certainly needs to disrupt established competition in this space but the backing of the Mastercard license, the lowest fees, and the versatility and seamlessness of swapping in and out of crypto and fiat currencies put it well to the vanguard in this sector.

Tap Global doesn’t plan to sit on its laurels though and will look to widen its services to include the availability of far more cryptocurrencies and to integrate a greater choice of fiat currencies.

In the finance sector blockchain and cryptocurrencies are fast converging and assimilating with traditional finance providers and banking. The companies that integrate both strands the quickest are going to have the huge benefits that accrue to first movers — Tap Global is already amongst the first.

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