Digital currency-friendly Bank Arival launches—but with a catch

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Arival, a bank that describes itself as digital currency-friendly, has launched its banking service in beta. Puerto-Rico based Arival claims to be the first fintech bank account for “abnormal” customers, which is why digital currency businesses fit that bill. 

Companies that work with digital currency typically have trouble receiving banking services because banks and other financial institutions see digital currency firms as “high-risk clients.” Arival is looking to fill that gap by supplying the banking services that digital currency businesses need, but there is one catch. Users who want to bank with Arival will have to show their digital currency wallet addresses and allow the company to analyze previous transactions.

A bank that tracks customer transactions

Before Arival takes on digital currency firms as a client, they will have to track the transactions.

“To the extent that Arival will be servicing crypto customers, we take very seriously the need to complete due diligence to ensure they are regulated and legally compliant issuers. Arival has no intention of servicing non-compliant entities or bad actors,” said Arival co-founder and chief operating officer Jeremy Berger.

Arival will be using blockchain analytic tools provided by Elliptic to conduct their due diligence on digital currency companies. The purpose of tracking potential customer transactions is to learn whether or not their potential client has registered with the necessary government agencies and is a law-abiding business.

To accomplish this, Arival will be looking at wallet addresses, the origin of transactions, the digital currencies used in the transactions, as well as if their potential client has conducted a transaction with a shell company among other metrics that may indicate money laundering or non-compliance.

Arival’s beta launch

In the beta stage of Arival’s banking services, clients will only be able to open a bank account with Arival, store their wealth in the account, and make transfers. In the future, when Arival is out of beta, Arival is looking to offer individual bank accounts, debit cards, remittance services in different currencies, lending products, and deposit/savings products. 

Arival claims to have more than 3,000 companies across 60 countries on their waitlist for banking services. Now that the company has beta launched, they can begin to onboard and service those clients.