kompany to be acquired by Moody’s in 2022

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Austria-based kompany, which provides global business verification services around Know Your Customer (KYC), Know Your Business (KYB), and Anti-Money Laundering (AML), has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Moody’s Analytics, the company that provides financial intelligence and analytical tools globally to help business leaders make better, faster decisions.

In a statement, kompany CEO Russell E. Perry said, “This new relationship is all about investing in our collective future and mission. We have been transparent about our ambitious expansion plans over the next few years and the incredible potential for our products and services in new sectors and markets. Being part of Moody’s represents the best possible route to meeting these goals and helps us accelerate the achievement of our mission to transform the burden of AML compliance into a competitive advantage.”

KYC, AML, and KYB use to be features that were considered “nice-to-have,” but they are now mandatory requirements that all business participants must go through before an enterprise can provide service to a client or customer. The purpose of KYC, AML, KYB, and other business and identification verification mechanisms is to mitigate the risk of an enterprise’s products or services being used for illicit activity. If an individual or entity does not meet minimum KYC requirements, enterprises typically do not do business with that party.

kompany has created a robust solution that improves the data and document verification process by aggregating access to data. kompany takes KYC, KYB, and AML data and documents from their primary sources in real-time and then guarantees the integrity of the data. Once the truthfulness of the document is verified, kompany makes a record of the verification data/document on the BSV blockchain and makes it available on their platform so that any business looking for business verification records from another company can retrieve the data through kompany.

The BSV blockchain automatically time-stamps censorship-resistant, immutable entries and is a transparent ledger that can be accessed globally, making it the perfect fit for any industry that involves record-keeping, data verification, identity management, and auditing.

Because kompany’s verification solution lives on the blockchain, their platform creates the opportunity for a new type of data economy to exist. Because the verification data is stored on the blockchain, it can be tokenized and therefore, easier to resell and trade since it already lives on top of a network that has a coin or token that has value ascribed to it.

Why Moody’s bought kompany

In an interview with CoinGeek, Perry said “joining forces” with Moody’s made the most sense for both parties.

“We were in the process of raising funds for our growth round and during the course of these conversations, we entered into discussion with Moody’s, who have a successful track record in investing in new technologies, especially in RegTech. Ultimately, we came to the conclusion that joining forces made the most sense and an acquisition agreement was formed,” Perry said.

He added, “The acquisition of kompany is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022, subject to customary closing conditions, and regulatory approval. After joining forces with Moody’s Analytics, we will continue to help our clients tackle their anti-money laundering and KYB requirements with the leading technology and services they have come to expect from our team.”

A landmark victory for blockchain

Moody’s acquisition of kompany is a major milestone for the blockchain-based RegTech sector; an on-chain verification solution being adopted by one of the largest agencies in the financial services industry further validates the use of blockchain-based technologies for record-keeping purposes. Many blockchain companies will see this acquisition as a signal that there is value in on-chain verification solutions and might set out to build similar solutions of their own, while others will note that kompany used the Bitcoin SV blockchain and will further investigate BSV to learn why Moody’s—one of the world’s leading firms—acquired a company building on the BSV enterprise blockchain.

Watch: CoinGeek New York presentation, FYI: Better Information Tools for a More Lawful Blockchain Industry