Open Source DeFi Platform Celo Announces New Partnership With FinClusive

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 3, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Celo, an open-source blockchain ecosystem focused on making decentralized financial (DeFi) systems and tools accessible to anyone with a smartphone, and FinClusive, a hybrid fintech/regtech platform providing accounts and payments solutions for fintech and virtual asset service providers with an embedded full-stack anti-money laundering compliance application, today announced a partnership designed to provide a fully compliant U.S. dollar on and off ramp for cUSD by leveraging Valora, a mobile-first digital wallet native to the Celo Platform, which allows you to save, send, and spend crypto as easily as sending a text.

Through this partnership, FinClusive's AML/KYC capabilities will now be integrated with Valora, built on Celo, enabling consumers to fund cUSD in the Valora wallet directly from their bank accounts. In addition to the Valora integration, this partnership will permit the integration of a compliant U.S. Dollar on and off ramp. This will be accessible to anyone in the Celo community building peer-to-peer applications with financial crimes compliance (FCC) controls and capabilities.

"The launch of the Valora app on Celo was an important milestone in Celo's journey to offer mobile-first, inclusive DeFi solutions for consumers across the globe," said Jai Ramaswamy, Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at Celo. "In leveraging FinClusive's payments and compliance stack, developers on Celo will be able to address a key limitation typically experienced by users of non-custodial wallets and other DeFi solutions: the ability to move funds quickly between user's bank accounts and non-custodial wallets on Celo. By providing an efficient, cost-effective and compliant way to cash in and out of cUSD on the Celo platform, this partnership with FinClusive will enhance the ability of Celo users to access stablecoins and DeFi solutions on Celo, ensure AML/KYC and monitoring tools are in place, and lead the way toward a more inclusive financial future. This partnership demonstrates that the goals of financial integrity and financial inclusion do not have to conflict."

Amit Sharma, Chief Executive Officer of FinClusive, commented: "FinClusive's mission has always been to modernize the regulatory compliance system and allow alternative financial services, small businesses, nonprofits, and marginalized individuals and organizations access to essential financial services. Our vision aligns perfectly with Celo's mission to create an open and inclusive financial system using decentralized blockchain technology. By leveraging both FinClusive and Celo's synergistic capabilities, I am excited to contribute to the transformation of payments processes as we create alternative means to accessing and transacting within the global financial system. I'm also proud that we're doing this in a way that reinforces essential privacy, transparency and governance in financial services."

Since its founding, Celo has remained committed to its three pillars: mobile, open, and real. Celo's mobile-first, interoperable platform provides solutions for real people to ultimately foster inclusion and prosperity for all. In January of this year, Celo launched Valora, a mobile wallet used by more than 200K users globally. Using Valora, Celo conducted a pilot program with the Grameen foundation, helping to distribute COVID-related aid to 3,500 female entrepreneurs in the Philippines. In April, Celo also announced a partnership with Deutsche Telekom AG, Europe's largest telecommunications company.

FinClusive launched its Compliance as a Service (CaaS) application in late 2019 and came to market with its Accounts & Payments (A&P) platform in late 2020, providing its customers and partners access to its growing US bank of record partners and ability to on and off-ramp between virtual assets and fiat for payments of all types. FinClusive continues to grow its partners across globally, and providing services between the U.S. and LatAm, Africa, Europe and Asia.

About Celo
Celo is a mobile-first, open-source ecosystem of technologies, organizations and individuals that all share a common mission of building a financial system that creates the conditions for prosperity for everyone. The Celo ecosystem includes a decentralized, proof-of-stake blockchain technology stack (Celo Platform), a native asset (CELO), two stablecoins (cUSD and cEUR) and the Celo Foundation's Alliance for Prosperity, with over 130 organizations around the world, including Andreessen Horowitz, Anchorage, Coinbase, GSMA, Mercy Corps, Grameen Foundation, Prosegur, Abra, and cLabs, a service organization dedicated to growing and developing the Celo ecosystem. For more information on Celo, please visit celo.org.

About FinClusive
FinClusive is a hybrid fintech/regtech company that provides services to the growing fintech and virtual asset/crypto and nonbank FI community – enabling digital access to accounts and payments with embedded full-stack financial crimes compliance – in one integrated platform. As a licensed and regulated nonbank financial services provider, FinClusive provides companies the ability to establish insured accounts for themselves and their clients and conduct cross border payments over crypto/blockchain and traditional bank rails, all with global-standard full-service compliance. FinClusive is built to be engaged by decentralized financial services applications, e-commerce, marketplaces and others that are increasingly providing financial products and services in a peer-to-peer context. For more information on FinClusive, please visit finclusive.com.

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SOURCE Celo