FinTech News

Current Announces Partnership with Decentralized Finance Platform Acala

As many aspects of money modernize, the lines between FinTech and traditional finance have begun blurring. Similarly, another trend has brought fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies closer together, allowing all kinds of platforms to harness the power of blockchain. With that in mind, two FinTechs have revealed plans to create a “HyFi” platform.

This week, the FinTech banking platform Current announced that it would be working with Acala, a decentralized finance tool built on the Polkadot blockchain network. With the partnership, the firms are looking to create a new category called hybrid finance — or HyFi. As the name implies, this combines traditional finance tools with decentralized finance applications. According to Current, in a bid to “ensure full trust of these products,” the company will join the active validator set on the Polkadot network.

Current says that the integration with Acala will be built into their Current Core platform. As a result, the pair hope to accelerate the timeline for when the HyFi experience will be developed and become available to Current’s more than three million users. No timeline for when the fruits of this partnership will be evident was revealed just yet.

Commenting on what the partnership means for Current and its platform, the company’s chief technology officer Trevor Marshall said in a statement, “We created Current because we could see how money was being re-networked through new technologies. Our initiative with Acala allows us to flex this muscle we have been developing for the past six years.” Meanwhile, Acala co-founder Bette Chen said, “Current is leading the way at the intersection of modern banking and decentralized finance. The integration between Acala and Current is a groundbreaking innovation, and we are excited to bring cutting-edge financial solutions to Current’s members.” Chen went on to tease, “This is only the tip of the iceberg of the products we can build to blend traditional FinTech and crypto-native products.”

This ambitious partnership with Acala comes on the heels of Current closing a $220 million funding round last month. The Series D was led by Andreessen Horowitz and valued the FinTech at $2.2 billion — tripling its valuation from just five months prior. To date, the company has raised a total of $400 million for its mobile banking app.

In many ways, HyFi certainly sounds like the future of FinTech banking services. Of course, it remains to be seen how this partnership between Acala and Current will impact customers of the growing service. Nevertheless, it’s clear that the company is looking to make an impact — and has plenty of venture capital to help it do just that.