New Member VerifyUnion

Albertus Smith, CEO of VerifyUnion, shares some insights into the company’s connection with FinTechNZ:

Who is representing VerifyUnion in the FinTechNZ community?

Albertus (AJ) Smith is a Business Strategist, Mentor, Serial-Entrepreneur and FinTech-experienced CEO. He has founded or co-founded more than 20 successful businesses in his lifetime and created employment for thousands of people. He is also the founder of New Zealand based tech companies VerifyUnion, Imperial Digital and Help Giant.

He has a passion for emerging technologies such as Blockchain and other FinTech, and is frequently invited to be a panellist for industry seminars. He has “retired” twice in his life and always made it back in business, with a driving passion for his next successful venture.

What is VerifyUnion doing in the FinTech sector?

VerifyUnion use our expertise in the Blockchain, IOT and the AI space to create solutions for banks, insurance companies, exporters and related parties. Our products include Digital Identity, KYC and AML products for local and global applications, as well as Trade Finance, Supply Chain and Trade Documents on Blockchain used next to other emerging technology.

In October 2018, VerifyUnion did the first live trade on a New Zealand-developed Blockchain trade window, exporting meat from a New Zealand exporter to a Korean buyer, where all the parties participated and finished the transaction just under one hour.

Read the article here https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12152635

As you can see, this platform will speed up trade finance and export/import capability for New Zealand, where financial institutions and exporters will benefit the most.

How do you see financial services changing in the next five years?

The Financial Services landscape is going to see a large amount of disruption in the next five years. I believe financial services companies will need to adopt emerging technologies; it will be crucial to their very existence. VerifyUnion is built on the philosophy that Blockchain will form a part of this new future, but only in its mature and commercial formate. The craze around Blockchain has now blown over to some extent, and the real business cases for Blockchain will scale and be adopted by FinTechs in the years to come.

About VerifyUnion

VerifyUnion NZ Limited was founded early 2017 in Singapore; in January 2018 the company transferred to New Zealand.

VerifyUnion provides total ownership of stored data, from the network through to the customer (end user), while protecting user privacy and securing documents and identity.

VerifyUnion’s first product was a decentralized Digital Identification and Verification platform built on Blockchain. The Company expanded its product range to Supply Chain Management in June 2018, to showcase the benefit of its products used alongside Supply Chain Management Systems.

Quick Facts about VerifyUnion:

20 employees
The Company was nominated by the Entrepreneur (USA edition) as one of the top 14 Companies in Blockchain to watch in 2018.
AJ Smith was featured on NZ Business Leaders Review in July 2018 as one of five Business Leaders for the Year.