Uphold: Blockchain Finance Gears up for the Mainstream

This July saw a milestone in the mainstream acceptance of digital assets and cryptocurrencies with the approval of the U.S. stablecoin bill known as the GENIUS Act by the US House of Representatives.

With the passing of this bill, the support of the world’s largest economy is now fully behind blockchain and digital assets. With this, the United States mirrors the regulatory progression seen in other jurisdictions around the world, such as Europe, the UK, the UAE and Singapore. 

Concurrently, major banks, payments firms, brokers, and fintechs have stepped up efforts to integrate digital assets into their offerings.

From JP Morgan Chase offering crypto options to customers, through BNY opening its platform to tokenization, to Mastercard bringing a stablecoin to its payments network, the past six months has seen an explosion in interest around on-chain services.

“With the new regulatory clarity around blockchain, companies are getting off the sidelines and want to get quickly into the game,” said Robin O’Connell, CEO of Uphold Enterprise, an on-chain-finance platform provider.

“The conversation with banks, fintechs and payment companies has shifted from solely managing risks to pursuing a competitive advantage and capturing new revenue streams.”

Whereas just 12 months ago navigating the regulatory waters was the main concern for institutions looking to deploy on-chain services, O’Connell believes that their biggest concern today is a fear of missing out.

“This new phase of blockchain-powered finance brings with it opportunities for businesses to deliver faster, more cost-effective ways for their customers to invest, move money globally, and make payments. But they need the right infrastructure to do it, and they need to get to market quickly to take advantage of the opportunity,” he adds. 

Tapping into the blockchain opportunities is no mean feat. Financial institutions must navigate complex regulatory, technological and operational landscapes, which can be time and resource intensive without expert help.

Businesses like Uphold can help by providing a ready-to-use infrastructure and controls, inclusive of compliance, infosec, and fraud prevention, for crypto services.

O’Connell explains: “Our enterprise APIs provide seamless access to our platform’s core services, giving businesses the modern infrastructure they need to launch payment, banking, and investment solutions on-chain.” 

Businesses like Uphold provide a rapid, resilient, and high-quality alternative to financial institutions building their own infrastructure, which is a costly and time-consuming process. This brings with it a significant competitive differentiator.

“We bring 11 years of experience in operating a blockchain finance platform. Our APIs have been battle tested on a retail business with millions of users, enabling us to achieve a level of resilience you can’t get from a conventional crypto exchange.”

A growing number of financial institutions are already taking up the benefits that come with ready-to-deploy on-chain capabilities.

Following successful integrations with major DeFi, crypto-native, and neo-banking customers, for example, Uphold is now powering IG Group’s new crypto trading service for UK customers, highlighting its growing role as a key enterprise partner.

IG has in fact become the first UK-listed company to offer crypto access to retail investors.

“We enabled IG Index to integrate crypto support in just three months,” concludes O’Connell. “In the same way, we can help banks, brokers, and payment firms incorporate digital assets far faster than building the infrastructure internally.

For users, the experience is seamless. They access crypto directly through the IG Index app they’re already familiar with, with Uphold delivering the framework to power crypto services behind the scenes.

As more organisations move to integrate digital assets and on-chain services, they are met with the buy or build decision. By choosing a “buy” approach, firms can rapidly deploy reliable, tested on-chain solutions, accelerating time to market and staying ahead of the competition.