Under the terms of the partnership, VirtusaPolaris will both resell Token’s programmable money network to banks and financial service providers and provide Token with systems integration support. VirtusaPolaris will also work on developing its own suite of services that leverage Token’s underlying smart tokenisation technology.
Token founder and CEO Steve Kirsch said: “The Token network enables banks to transact with programmable money, which makes it incredibly versatile.
“VirtusaPolaris has understood this potential and moved quickly to partner with us. It’s great news for us; not only do we now have a partner that can help us show banks how they can monetise PSD2, we also have a co-developer with a wealth of experience and engineering skills for new services and propositions. Token already has trials underway with a number of major banks, so things are starting to move quickly for us now.”
VirtusaPolaris FinTech Labs head of technology Stephen Holmes said: “The opportunities for banks offered by programmable money are remarkable and Token’s network and API ecosystem is the most comprehensive proposition we’ve seen.
“Using the Token network to establish banks’ compliance with PSD2 is a smart starting point, but that’s really just the beginning. Token enables any kind of value-based transaction, from a low value domestic purchase to a vast international bank-to-bank money transfer, to be conducted securely, instantly and without reliance on third parties. We’re hugely excited by this partnership, which builds upon our recent launch of our OpenBanking API Accelerator.”
VirtusaPolaris’ OpenBanking API Accelerator provides banks with an ability to securely and rapidly enhance their digital offerings using an ecosystem of third party applications, like Token, together with other connectors and services designed to kick-start their API journey and enable them to build next generation digital products and services.
Banks use Token’s network to issue and redeem payment authorisations as smart tokens which can be programmed with any number of terms and conditions in accordance with the instructions of the account holder. This enables each smart token to be uniquely specified according to the transaction it represents.
They can also execute API callouts to external web services, enabling value added services to be integrated in just the same manner. Sensitive card or account data never leaves the bank’s systems, masked or otherwise, vastly reducing the bank’s security vulnerabilities.
Token’s programmable money network reverses the fortunes of Europe’s banks in the digital age and empowers them to lead the market in digital transactions. It puts banks in sole control of the entire digital payments chain so they no longer have to relinquish front-end control of their customer relationships to digital payment-enabling partners.
Token’s platform also enables banks to issue value added services and retain ownership of the resultant customer profiling data. These advantages benefit banks by eliminating the widely-documented threat of disintermediation, while providing a model that both increases margins and reduces time-to-revenue for new digital services.
