SelfKey Progress Report June 2019 — SelfKey

The Bank Accounts Marketplace will soon launch within the SelfKey Wallet. The SelfKey team has been working tirelessly to bring you this one-of-a-kind service.

Once it’s live, you will be able to easily open a bank account in many excellent jurisdictions. Users with a completed SelfKey ID will be able to complete the registration process in a matter of minutes. Not only does the Bank Accounts Marketplace offer unprecedented convenience but it also speeds up a typically very tedious process.

Here is a sneak-peak at what’s to come:

Notice how users will be able to choose between Personal and Corporate bank accounts in the near future.

If we click on the listing for Singapore, we can learn about the Bank Account in more detail:

Here we can see all the relevant specifications including the type of available cards, processing time and total cost. Of course, payment is in KEY.

We lay out exactly what our offer includes so you know precisely what you’re paying for.

Once you’ve made your decision you can use your completed SelfKey ID to easily submit your KYC information and complete the purchase:

Voila! That’s how the Bank Account Marketplace will work.

As a final note here, don’t make the mistake of comparing the Bank Accounts Marketplace to a service like Transferwise. We’re offering a real bank account in your name in the jurisdiction of your choice. This brings five significant advantages:

• Asset protection — Freedom and independence are integral parts of SelfKey’s mission. By opening a bank account abroad you create another layer of protection between your personal wealth and regional crises.
• A better banking system — Not all banks are created equal and depending on your location, you may well find that the system is fundamentally unsound. Opening a bank account in a stable jurisdiction like Singapore or Malta significantly mitigates your risk.
• Higher interest rates for your deposits — Interest rates offered by banks in the western world barely beat inflation.Opening a bank account abroad allows you to escape the low-interest environment and start to accumulate wealth.
• Currency diversification — Locking your personal wealth to one currency is risky. Even small deviations can have a significant negative impact — especially over a longer stretch of time. Use a foreign bank account to diversify your currencies and spread the risk more effectively.
• Maximise your freedom — The more dependent you are on your local bank the less freedom you have. If one institution can effectively prohibit you from accessing your money then you should think about opening a bank account abroad. This will help to maximise your freedom.

Coming Soon: SelfKey Affiliate Program

An affiliate program is an incredibly powerful marketing tool that helps businesses like Coinbase achieve significant growth. The premise is simple: You can earn money by referring your friends. This adds an extra incentive to share your positive experiences with your network, because successful referrals will generate income for you.

At SelfKey, we really like this approach and have been working on our affiliate program. This will likely include personalised affiliate links which lead directly to the SelfKey Marketplace. If your referral clicks on your link and makes a purchase in the Marketplace you will earn a percentage of the sale as income. Pretty sweet right?

On the blog: Libra and Data Breaches

Facebook’s New Token

Facebook’s new token has captured headlines across the world. For us at SelfKey, Libra represents a dangerous shift, in which multi-billion dollar corporations try to get a foothold in an industry which is primarily about increasing individual freedom.

The whole point of Bitcoin and the wave of modern cryptocurrencies is to remove the need for middlemen and empower individuals. Facebook’s entry into the space has the potential to subvert this mission. We shouldn’t fall for it.

You can read a detailed analysis of Facebook’s Libra project here.

Data Breaches Affecting NASA & Medical Service Providers

June was another bad month for consumer privacy as four serious data breaches occurred exposing sensitive information of nearly 30 million people. The shocking regularity of security incidents like these are a clear sign that the current system of identity management is broken.

Major breaches affected Labcorp, Quest Diagnostics and NASA, showing that malicious actors manage to find vulnerabilities in any centralized data storage system. Self-Sovereign Identity will solve this problem.

June brings the total number of exposed records up to at least 4 billion in 2019 alone. You can find a more detailed timeline here .

That’s all for June. Thanks for reading.

Originally published at https://selfkey.org on July 15, 2019.