LONDON, July 16, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UK’s first native crypto exchange platform is on its way to become a reality.
Sovren Exchange, a venture founded by a team of London-based banking executives, has announced an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to begin Q3 of this year. For their launch, Sovren (SVRN) is raising a maximum of 10 Million USD (combination of Equity Funding and its own Sovren Token) to create a hybrid order book and brokerage exchange platform that uses a trading engine supported by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
Sovren will have a fully compliant platform that will support trading in derivates, equities, commodities and securities. The platform will use intelligent automation to address liquidity challenges and a 3rd party custodial service for additional protection with a European Bank.
Sovren is supporting trading between all major crypto assets and fiat currencies like pounds, euros, and dollars, aiming for same day service and low, flat trading fees.
Cryptocurrency exchanges are already immensely profitable. According to the estimates reported by Bloomberg, Tokyo-based Binance alone pulls in more than 3 million USD in fees per day.
Sovren are in the final stages of building the platform with plans to be fully regulated by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). It will be the first to do so. There is a strategic focus towards institutional investors and to provide an industrial grade platform that is regulated, compliant and transparent.
“London is one of the most innovative financial hubs in the world,” said Sovren co-founder and CEO Avijeet Jayashekhar. “Building, maintaining and regulating a cryptocurrency exchange here makes a lot of sense. We on the Sovren team have the experience necessary to approach that process from the outset, rather than as an afterthought.”
One such team members is Sovren co-founder and CTO Wynand de Jager, who is a member of the British Blockchain Association with over 15 years experience implementing disruptive technology in the financial industry.
“There are a lot of opportunities and possibilities in a decentralized ecosystem, not least of which is making finance more inclusive than it has ever been,” said Wynand. “To take part in the current crypto world, however, you need to be quite technical. We want to change that.”
To this end, Sovren plans on implementing many of the processes and tech that power modern digital banking.
“The banking business, especially on the retail side, is a very competitive industry. If banks had the kind of customer service crypto exchanges currently have, they wouldn’t last very long,” said Avijeet. “Most of the technology is there to make the improvements necessary but because of the decentralized nature of blockchain, they need to be implemented in a new way.”
Much of that technology revolves around automating processes with the help of artificial intelligence, AI, and Robotic Process Automation, RPA.
“I spent a big part of my career building technology to improve the customer experience in banks and trading platforms like NASDAQ,” explained Avijeet. “When AI, Robotic Process Automation and Blockchain started emerging in early 2010, I got deeply involved in building businesses around them.”
Sovren plans on implementing AI and RPA to do tasks it has already proven successful at: performing customer service activities, recognizing and analyzing patterns in data to help traders make better decisions, and monitoring trading traffic to detect cyber threats.
“We will deliver customer service using emotionally intelligent chat AI and robotics to automate recurring functions in the front office, and back office such as customer onboarding, compliance, transaction processing, deactivation and activation of accounts and trading and settlement. This will significantly increase processing speed in comparison to most current crypto exchange operations,” explained Wynand. “We will of course also have real people overseeing, who will focus on high value tasks that can’t be easily solved by robotics.”
Customer service teams will be on hand 24/7 to handle high order issues. Sovren also plans on having an around-the-clock Security Operations Center to prevent, detect and respond to threats to the platform.
Top cyber security expert Luke Lynch has joined Sovren to ensure that it is built to the highest standard.
“Good security comes down to being able to recognize and respond to threats quickly,” said Luke. “With the aid of machine learning, pattern recognition and neural network, we can shut down attacks before they can have a major impact.”
“We want to decentralize the technologies that give institutional investors a leg up,” said Avijeet. “That means giving everyone access to algorithms that, for example, measure trend-based strategies that involve moving averages, channel breakouts, price level movements and other technical indicators. AI will also help provide traders with advanced analytics with what is going on in the market.”
Creating an exchange platform that can securely automate and process customer transactions with the speed and efficiency found in the banking industry requires a robust architecture that can do much more besides.
Sovren plans on developing applications, such as a payment gateway for merchants, a wallet to store crypto assets, and even a demo platform for customers to practice crypto trading before they embark on the real thing.
Beta releases for applications are expected end of 2018 and into 2019.
Sovren will open up APIs for any developer to use in creating their own applications, and will offer white label solutions to larger institutional investors.
“It is often a mistake to try and build a customized application from scratch for any business especially if the market the business is trying to enter falls outside their development expertise,” said Avijeet. “We will be well positioned to save organizations time and money by building it for them.”
Needless to say, the vision for the Sovren ecosystem is bigger than a crypto exchange.
“I think it is safe to say it all revolves around making cryptocurrency technology more accessible to the mainstream,” said Wynand. “The High Street deserves a greater chance to benefit from the promise of blockchain.”
Sovren is currently raising funds through Financial Institutions and traditional venture capitalist funds. Details for Sovren ICO can be found at https://sovren.exchange.
Investment Contact:
Chris Parker
Head of Business Development
Email: privatesale@sovren.exchange
Media Contact:
Natalia Boruch
Head of Media Relation
Email: ico@sovren.exchange
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/26346fad-2ce9-4218-970f-fc0711d34aca