Pave Bank moves out of stealth with a $5.2 million funding round
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Pave Bank, a programmable money startup, recently moved out of stealth with a digital commercial banking license in Georgia, as well as a $5.2 million funding round.
The bank intends to introduce a variety of services and features, including multi-currency operating accounts, as well as global payment connectivity. In addition to that, the bank is also promising to deliver a regulated platform where businesses can conduct transactions in stablecoins — central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) — as well as tokenized versions of real-world assets.
Who are Pave Bank’s founders?
The company was co-founded by Dmitry Bocharov, who acts as its COO; Simon Vans-Colina, who took on the role of the CTO; as well as Salim Dhanani, who became its CEO. All three are seasoned fintech and banking executives with years of experience.
The startup’s CEO, Salim Dhanani, for example, previously worked at the World Bank. After that, he moved to Carta Worldwide, only to then co-found a fintech payments and lender business, BigPay, which was launched in Southeast Asia.
The CTO, Simon Vans-Colina, previously worked at Vocalink and Citibank before moving to set up Starling Bank. He then left the bank with Paul Rippon and Tom Blomfield to establish Monzo, one of the biggest challenger banks in the UK, meaning that he was a member of the firm’s founding team.
As for Dmitry Bocharov, the startup’s COO was previously a member of Ferratum’s management team. Ferratum is a DAX-listed bank that operates throughout Europe, suggesting that his previous venture achieved great success. He also became the chief digital officer at VP Bank around nine years ago, when he moved to Vietnam.
Pave Bank to offer both old and new financial products
Commenting on the trio’s new startup, Dhanani said that Pave Bank’s goal is to champion a new path for its customers. The path where the bank’s current and future users would be able to access all of the financial products they are familiar with, but also an entire range of digital asset-enabled products which they had no previous experience with.
With all of these products available at one place, customers can come and start with what they know, and then slowly learn about other assets and branch out, expanding and diversifying their portfolios. He believes that these products would allow the bank’s customers to bank more efficiently. More importantly, they would be able to do it in a secure, regulated environment, with minimal risk.
Dhanani also added that programmable banking represents the next step in financial evolution. Right now, more and more businesses are thinking and operating on a global level. As a result, the solutions that can now be built using programmable money have the potential to completely transform things like treasury, credit products, and banking. Along the way, this approach can also open up an entire host of new products and services, for the users’ benefit.
