Eurosystem eMoney Institution license granted for ISXPay™
Nicosia, Cyprus, 05th April 2017 : iSignthis Ltd (ASX : ISX) (the Company) is pleased to advise that its subsidiary, iSignthis eMoney Ltd, trading as ISXPay™, has been granted an eMoney Institution (EMI) License #115.1.3.17 by the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC).
eMoney Institution License
An EMI license allows the Company to provide the following services within the European Economic Area (EEA):
• Execute payment transactions (including credit transfers, direct debits, through payment cards or a similar device)*;
• Issuing and/or acquiring of payment instruments, including credit/debit/virtual cards*;
• Issuance of eMoney, being digital cash stored on an electronic device, virtual card or remotely at a server*;
• Money remittance;
• FX services;
• Credit, for a maximum of 12 months, if the credit is closely linked to a payment service.
• Ancillary services;
Licensed Operations
Per the requirements of the license, the Company will now move to finalise its Principal Membership commercial arrangements with Visa Inc, MasterCard Worldwide, JCB and other card schemes, as a card acquirer and/or card issuer. These commercial arrangements will be concluded in parallel with the necessary technical integration to each of these card schemes, which integration is expected to take around six months. The technical integration programme of work has already been scoped and agreed, and has been awaiting the necessary issuance of the license prior to commencement.
In parallel, the Company has identified partnership opportunities whereby it may use the technical and payment settlement infrastructure of other EEA based payment service providers, whilst contracting and servicing merchants under its own license. Merchants can thus be contracted directly with ISXPay™, so as services and revenues may commence sooner across the EU.
John Karantzis, CEO of iSignthis said “The grant of an EU eMoney license is a significant milestone for the Company, overcoming the last significant hurdle in the execution of our strategy. The license allows the company to crystallise its strategy fully, and to offer its merchants the full range of Paydentity™, payment gateway, card acquiring and card issuing services in the EU, which will compliment our partnership with the National Australia Bank (ASX:NAB) for card acquiring services in Australia and New Zealand.
iSignthis will be able to provide our merchants with EU wide card acquiring and settlement services, in addition to issue of new cards for pay-outs to end users. This is an exciting period for iSignthis and ISXPay, with incredible potential revenue upside from the new lines of business it offers.”
eMoney Licensing
The license to iSignthis eMoney Ltd trading as ISXPay™, was granted in accordance with the provisions of the Republic of Cyprus Electronic Money Law, 2012. The Cypriot law was enacted for the purposes of harmonisation with the act of the European Community entitled “Directive 2009/110/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 September 2009”.
The license has been issued subject to the Company conforming with statutory requirements, and subject to audits for financial, technical and regulatory compliance.
The Company intends to focus initially on services indicated by an asterisk (*) above.
Further information on eMoney Licensing can be found at the European Central Bank website https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/money_credit_banking/electronic_money/html/index.en.html
and the website of the Central Bank of Cyprus
https://www.centralbank.gov.cy/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=8141
About iSignthis Ltd (ASX : ISX)
iSignthis Ltd (ASX:ISX) is the global leader in dynamic, digital AML/CFT KYC identity proofing. Our Paydentity® solution incorporates real time electronic verification which converges authenticated remote payments with Know Your Customer (KYC) verification. By converging payments and identity, iSignthis delivers regulatory compliance with automated customer on-boarding. We offer a global reach of any of the world’s 3.5Bn financially included or “banked” persons. iSignthis’ unique solutions protect both online customers and merchants from fraud and identity theft, and thus increase confidence and trust by all parties involved in remote transactions. ISXPay offers eMoney services, including card acquiring, in both the EU and Australia.