Igor Khmel is the CEO of BANKEX and one of the most established voices in the blockchain revolution. BANKEX is one of the first Fintech companies that bridge the gap between the emerging blockchain sector and traditional finance and has created a lot of waves in this industry. In this interview, Igor will be talking to us about the current BANKEX projects and the opportunities available to us;
1) Please tell us your name and briefly about yourself?
My name is Igor Khmel and I am the founder and CEO of BANKEX. I have worked in consulting, trading and finance at some of the top institutions globally. I was working as the head of the Innovation Lab at Sberbank, the largest Bank in Eastern Europe, and I realized that there was a big gap between the technological knowledge in the fintech space and the financial knowledge in the banking sector. The knowledge gap is even more severe when you talk about blockchain technology. I decided to field a team of ex Bankers and top blockchain engineers and developers to bring finance into the digital age.
2) What is BANKEX?
BANKEX’s flagship product is the Proof-of-Asset protocol (PoA); a standard that enables new generation of digital assets and contracts for decentralized capital markets. We are building Internet of Assets (IoA) on the principles of Bank-as-a-Service (BaaS), powered by Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. The PoA protocol is open for 3rd party fintech providers, AI and IOT labs, traditional financial institutions and asset owners. Our mission is to revolutionize banking and financial services without disrupting the existing banks. One of our core models is called Bank-as-a-Service (BaaS), and it is specifically designed to be complementary to existing banking systems and products by using the PoA protocol as an integrated application layer for capital markets globally incorporating blockchain into the existing financial systems business models. The PoA is revolutionary in that we can optimize the liquidity of non-fungible and traditionally illiquid assets, but they are not negatively disruptive because they can be accessed in ways that will create a customizable global banking API. A bank that partners with us can offer specific customized products to their clients based on our technologies, and we are also in the process of developing proofs of concept for several financial firms. BANKEX will make Banks even more client-centric since they will be able to quickly provide customizable new products to meet changing client demands across complex and challenging asset classes.
3) BANKEX has created a lot of waves in a brief period of time in the Fintech and Blockchain market, could you tell us the secret behind this success?
We have a real product filling a real gap that has existed in financial markets throughout history. Everyone talks in hypothetical terms about the ways in which blockchain can revolutionize finance, but rather than just talking about it we are actually doing it right now as we speak. We also care about human capital and we aggressively recruited an expert team from day one. BANKEX has the optimal blend of financial and capital markets expertise and a deep understanding and mastery of blockchain and cryptographic software development.
4) Please tell us about your new partnership with film producer Christopher Woodrow on MovieCoin project?
This is an exciting project for multiple reasons. Christopher is an established producer with a track record of success in the industry and we are experts in tokenization so the partnership makes sense from a practical standpoint. Film finance is a complex domain incorporating elements of structured finance, cash flow management and capital optimization. MovieCoin is a next-generation entertainment financing platform built on blockchain technology. The company offers investors an unprecedented opportunity to directly participate in the financing of Hollywood movies and TV shows with complete transparency regarding where their money is spent and how their investments perform. MovieCoin will accelerate investor returns, enhance liquidity and eliminate outdated accounting and payment processes that in the past have discouraged investment and negatively affected returns.
5) Tell us more about Proof-of-Asset Protocol and your smart asset assembly technology.
The PoA is quite complex, but at a high level it is customizable logic based on Ethereum smart contracts, and thus benefits from their infrastructural advantages. Similar to microservice architectures for business applications, the PoA can be seen as a structured, sequential chain of smart contracts, supplemented with oracles that may be connected like microservices. What’s more, the number of steps and the contract content at each step is determined by the business logic of the productive or financial asset to be tokenized. Using this technology we can create digital instruments and ecosystems for a variety of financial products, physical commodities, and non-fungible and complex asset classes. The reason these digital assets are “smart” is that they can incorporate automated constraints, conditions, or even artificial intelligence to automate cash flows, capture unrealized gains, mitigate and manage risk, compress trades, and many other applications under development.
6) Will this integration of tech and finance reshape how business is done in Hollywood?
Yes. The film industry is notoriously non-transparent and inaccessible to most investors. This stance is detrimental to both sides of the equation; interested investors have no access and even with access have no confidence that their capital is being deployed properly, and producers end up financing with excessively costly capital due to the limited pool of investors and the risks associated with the slow and unclear cash flows. MovieCoin will provide the lowest cost-of-capital for producers and the most transparent and accessible investments for interested investors.
7) How can we benefit from this your current project and what is in it for new investors?
New investors can realize a transparent and liquid investment as well as the opportunity to participate in the success of a portfolio of movies. The first movers in most industries have a substantial advantage and investors, partners and participant on this project will not only invest, but they will be establishing strong strategic positioning in the world of blockchain film finance, which will inevitably change the way films are produced entirely.
8) Could you tell us about your team and the future of BANKEX?
As I mentioned earlier we have been focused on building the best team globally from day one. We have team members in Moscow, New York City, Hong Kong, South Korea, San Francisco and Chicago including experts across both the finance and computer science domains. BANKEX is already working on numerous proofs-of-concept and partnerships with large banks, financial institutions, commodities traders and investment banks. The future of BANKEX is the future of banking; we are taking outdated banking systems, products and services and transforming them for the digital age.
9) Would you like to talk about your Compliance and security strategies?
Sure, we are extremely focused on compliance with all applicable international laws and we are a security-obsessed team. We have developed proprietary in-house processes for KYC as well as partnering with third-parties for additional functionality around AML and client due diligence. Our cyber security is a point of pride of the entire organization and we always build additional layers of security onto the proofs the we are developing for companies such that they receive the robust cryptographic benefits of the Ethereum Virtual Machine with an added layer of privacy and protection.
10) Do you have more information for our readers?
I would urge your readers to check out our website and our whitepaper as well. We have a massive array of projects underway and importantly each will incorporate our PoA protocol and its native currency BKX. MovieCoin is an example of such a project and something your readers should pay attention to as we are ramping up to launch.
