Plutus partners with Veriff to Make Crypto Spendable Anywhere

We've been looking forward to this announcement for a while, and now we're happy to finally tell you that we've partnered up with Plutus. Plutus are looking to make cryptocurrencies more accessible, and easily spendable, anywhere and anytime. And with their help, here's an explanation why they want to do that, and why they need Veriff's help.

The Problem With Bitcoin

The first Bitcoin purchase happened way back in 2010, when two pizzas were bought for 10,000 BTC, which now equates to over $450 million. Yes, those are some seriously expensive pizzas.

However, despite the nature of that very first purchase, cryptocurrencies are still more commonly used as an investment rather than for daily spending. This is partly because it is impossible to spend cryptocurrencies at your local stores. Currently, everyday retailers simply don’t accept cryptocurrencies as a form of payment, and this is something that could take years to overcome.

Plutus - Making Crypto Spendable Anywhere

Plutus is a start-up looking to solve this, enabling cryptocurrencies to be spent anywhere in the world as originally intended by the pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Plutus combines a cryptocurrency wallet, an exchange, and a Visa Debit Card into one easy-to-use app. This allows people to instantly convert their cryptocurrencies into spendable card balance, effectively making crypto spendable anywhere.

Plutus has managed to combine upcoming cryptocurrencies with the traditional payment systems so that people can pay in crypto using a physical debit card at over 60+ million stores. What’s more, every time the user spends with their Plutus Card, they earn 3% cryptoback, making it one of the most rewarding cards on the market.

The above product set combined with traditional neo-banking features put Plutus in a strong position to rival well-known finance applications.

From a user point of view, it boils down to two main factors; ease-of-use and the security of user data

Companies like Plutus need to make sure that their customers are who they claim to be, to avoid criminal activity, like money laundering and financing of terrorism. Verifying an identity seems like it should be easy - the customer provides pictures of their document and all is good. However, this only scratches the surface. It’s necessary to make sure that the person sending those photos is the genuine owner of those documents, that the person hasn’t used photoshop to tamper with the photos, and you’ll need to do this for hundreds of users a day, without compromising on the time it takes to sign up.

This is why ID verification providers are becoming more widespread within the industry. Before switching over to Veriff, Plutus was using another vendor to verify their customers, but due to challenges they decided to look for another provider. As Plutus’ COO Jasper Tay put it:

“We undertook research on a number of KYC providers and we were impressed with the product offering, founders, roadmap, and professionalism of Veriff. The value proposition that Veriff brings to the table for our rapidly growing user-base is tangible.”

With a new ID verification vendor popping up weekly, it can be difficult to navigate between different vendors. Jasper shared some tips on what to look out for, when picking a new provider. “From a user point of view, it boils down to two main factors; ease-of-use and the security of user data, both of these are achieved by Veriff to a high standard.

When an organisation is selecting a KYC provider, they need to ensure that the checks being processed are robust and thorough, but don’t overextend what is required.

Here at Plutus, we have plans to expand beyond our current regions of availability in the UK and Europe to include both Asia and Latin America; the strengthened compliance offered by Veriff is a part of the necessary toolkit for enabling our international expansion.”

We at Veriff hope that this partnership will help Plutus create an additional layer of trust with their customers, and help continue their mission of integrating crypto into our daily lives.