Billon is the first blockchain company to receive EU e-money licence from the regulator in Poland

• The Polish-British fintech received permission to operate as a regulated electronic money institution
• The Polish Financial Supervision Authority announced this to be the first-ever permit to an e-money issuer using distributed ledger technology license to operate in the whole of EU 
• With this license Billon will be able to provide national currency stored value accounts and payment services for institutional and white-label clients throughout EU
• This is not a stablecoin, but rather natively encrypted national currency value

Warsaw / London, April 26 2019. Billon Solutions Sp. z o.o., a fully owned subsidiary of Billon Group in the UK, obtained permission from the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (Komisja Nadzoru Finansowego - KNF) to operate as an EU registered electronic money institution. This is the first permit of this type issued by KNF. 

Thanks to the permission, Billon will be able to provide a number of payment services in national currency, such as keeping an electronic money deposits accounts, issuing payment instruments, making transactions, exchanging currencies or remittance, using its DLT enterprise system. The license also entitles Billon to issue electronic money in the form of a national currency with the same value as cash and money on a bank account.

Wojtek Kostrzewa, CEO of Billon Group, comments: - The e-money license is a milestone in Billon's development. With it we will be able to offer companies all over Europe a whole range of accounts and payments solutions that unleash the potential of our high-performance DLT system. We can present a wide range of B2B2C applications, such as P2P transfers, micropayments for multimedia content, e-commerce, or corporate payments at much lower cost than with legacy banking systems. I would like to thank everyone at Billon for their hard work and dedication to achieving this success.

Andrzej Horoszczak, CTO and Founder of Billon Group, comments: - This milestone recognizes that Billon has achieved a natively encrypted national currency capability, beyond the concept of a ‘stablecoin’, which is a cryptocurrency concept. Billon encrypts everyday currency directly, and can make peer-to-peer transactions without liquidity concerns or the friction of a bid-ask spread related to stablecoins.

The permit allows Billon to operate in the entire European Union, should the company exert its passporting rights, in which case KNF would notify supervisory authorities in other EU countries about the Polish license. 

Billon applied for this license in August 2018. During the approval process, the company demonstrated the regulatory compliance of its DLT system and ability to achieve the highest level of security. Another subsidiary of Billon Group, London-based Billon Financial Ltd. received regulatory approval and is registered as a Small Electronic Money Institution (SEMI) by the British regulatory body FCA. 

What is electronic money?

Electronic money is the digital alternative to physical cash, which enables users to store national currencies on a device (card of phone) or through the internet and to make payment transactions under directive 2009/110/EC. 

However, the Polish interpretation of the e-money directive is strictly to the letter of the directive. Pre-paid cards, popular in the European Union, are not recognized as an e-money instrument in Poland, as, according to the regulator, they operate in fact with money stored on bank servers. KNF claimed that electronic money must be stored directly on users' instruments, i.e. on cards, smartphones or tablets. This requirement is fulfilled by the DLT system developed by Billon, where money is distributed among users' applications, beyond the control of any intermediaries. 

The electronic money offered by Billon is a very attractive solution for corporations who want to make many small transactions at a lower price than an ACH transaction. From the moment the account is registered in the blockchain system, the company controls the transfer of money in real time and 24/7, with all governance controls embedded in users applications. Payment processing is performed by the DLT system, and not by traditional banking and clearing systems. As such, electronic money is a faster and cheaper tool to make all forms of transactions. 

About Billon:

Billon created the first enterprise DLT system, unifying national currency transactions, document management and identity management into a single architecture. Our mission is to unleash the transformational capabilities of DLT in the regulated world.

Billon went behind the initial principles of blockchain by creating a new protocol for encrypting national currencies within existing regulations. We first solved the challenge of transacting micropayments at scale, and we now can encrypt documents and data 'on-chain' as well. Our high-performance DLT system is designed to deliver tangible business results in Account & Transactions, Trusted Documents, and Identity & Data Sharing.

Billon was founded in the UK in 2015, following several years of R&D in Poland. Its unique DLT protocol has been supported by many R&D grants, including the EU Horizon 2020 program. Billon is licensed to issue electronic money throughout the EU and employs a global team of more than 80 professionals across its offices in London and Warsaw. In November 2018 the company won the world's largest fintech festival in Singapore, organized by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, showcasing a solution to zero-cost blockchain micropayments.

For more information, visit www.billongroup.com

Media contact:

Maciej Józefowicz

Head of PR & Communication

maciej.jozefowicz@billongroup.com 

tel. 0048 734 443 023