US Crypto Firms Will Soon Have Another Banking Option

Things may be about to get a little easier for firms working with cryptocurrency in the U.S.

U.K.-based Cashaa, which describes itself as a banking service platform, is about to launch bank accounts for stateside crypto firms denominated in U.S. dollars.

The new accounts will be open for applications from Nov. 25, with Cashaa saying they offer full banking features with access to all nations globally, bar sanctioned jurisdictions.

Archit Aggarwal, Cashaa's chief product officer, further said the accounts would be domiciled in the U.S. and have "full access" to automated clearinghouse (ACH) and SWIFT networks. Crypto and other "high risk" firms will need to fork out an account set-up fee of 250,000 CAS – Cashaa's own token. That's roughly $1,576 at the token's current price of $0.006306, according to CoinMarketCap data.

The firm also said it's created a "pre-compliance team" to make onboarding new firms a quicker affair, as well as to cut down on account rejections.

"Since our pre-compliance team started working, our onboarding speed has doubled with our U.K.-regulated partner entities. Partnering with a US bank will help us expand our services to the USA as well as provide our existing customers more opportunities," said Aggarwal.

Crypto industry companies in the U.S., as well as other jurisdictions, have traditionally struggled to find banks that will serve them. Even if they do, accounts may be closed without notice or warning over the perceived risks of cryptocurrencies. As such, there are relatively few crypto-friendly banks allowing firms to conduct normal daily business as other more traditional industries would expect as standard.

One such haven is Silvergate Bank, which listed on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this month.

Cashaa's new service, however, comes via a partnership with Metropolitan Commercial Bank, which has also been working to draw crypto business for some time. The bank said in interview last year that, while cryptocurrency businesses are pariahs to traditional banks, to it, they’re “pioneers.” The push to draw more crypto firms brought a more than 300-percent increase, year-on-year, in the bank's non-interest income, Metropolitan said last April.

"Traditional banks currently underserve crypto-related businesses," said Cashaa's co-founder and VP of marketing, in last week's announcement. "The addition of US dollar accounts is an important milestone for the crypto community and us."