Established in 2022, Due Network has a vision to enhance international payment processes through the use of stablecoins and blockchain technology. The company offers multi-currency accounts, global transfers/remittances, and merchant-acquiring services for businesses and individuals.

Sargsian began the conference by providing insights into Due’s foundational principles. The platform is built on decentralised networks, ensuring accessible, fast, and cost-effective international money movements. What sets Due apart is its non-custodial nature, granting clients complete control and direct access to their assets without intermediary involvement.

“Our platform is non-custodial. It means that when you’re actually buying, let’s say digital dollar, you hold it using your cryptographic key on your device.”

Three Pillars of Innovation

Sargsian outlined the three pillars that form the core of Due Network’s offerings: Vaults, Payments, and Transfers.

1. Vaults: Users can hold and manage various currencies online, ensuring full control over their accounts. Due’s non-custodial approach emphasizes user autonomy.
2. Payments: Designed for businesses and individuals, this feature allows the acceptance and receipt of payments through various methods, including generating invoices, payment links, or checkouts.
3. Transfers: Catering to international transactions, the Transfers product enables users to top up their accounts and send money to vendors globally. This is particularly beneficial for businesses with overseas suppliers and vendors.

As Due Network enters the Nigerian market, Sargsian highlighted the platform’s web-based nature, requiring users to register and, for international transfers, undergo KYC or KYB processes. The initial focus will be on Nigeria, along with 14 additional African countries, including South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, and Tanzania.

“There’s a lot of demand for moving funds overseas and holding digital dollars in Nigeria, and that’s why we actually decided to focus on this market.”

In the short term, Due Network aims to launch corridors between the US, UK, Europe, and Africa, with plans to expand further into Asia Pacific and Latin America in subsequent quarters.

Sargsian also unveiled upcoming features, including a mobile app set to launch in January. Additionally, Due is working on an embedded solution, allowing other financial service platforms to integrate Due’s API and leverage their payment rails.

“Our main goal is to have the biggest coverage as possible and be able to serve as many use cases as possible using our platform.”

Responding to concerns about trust within the crypto market in Nigeria, Sargsian emphasized Due’s vision for a non-custodial approach, ensuring users have full control over their funds. He also acknowledged the uncertainty surrounding crypto regulations but expressed confidence that positive developments will occur, drawing parallels with the evolving regulatory landscape in the US and Europe.

Addressing user control, Sargsian explained two options: connecting an external wallet for heightened security or creating an embedded wallet on the Due platform. The latter option includes robust recovery measures to ensure users never lose access to their funds.

Regarding transaction speed, Due Network utilises Ethereum blockchain and scaling solutions like Polygon for swift and secure transactions. While settlements may take up to an hour, Due is continuously working to enhance speed, especially in regions like the US where instant payment networks are being integrated.

In response to questions about the competitive landscape and blockchain’s prominence in Nigeria, Sargsian highlighted Due’s collaborative efforts with local players, leveraging its technology for seamless connectivity and liquidity. Looking ahead, Due Network aims to play a key role in bolstering the expansion of blockchain technology in payments.

• Due provides borderless accounts and cross-border payments through their decentralised non-custodial platform, offering clients direct control over their assets.
• The waitlist to request priority access is now live, with initial launch in Nigeria scheduled for later this month.
• Sub-Saharan Africa, the UK, EEA and the US are the priority corridors, with LatAm and APAC also scheduled for Q1 ’24.

Due Network, a next-gen fintech startup, has announced their plans to launch their global payments platform in Nigeria.

The solution offers borderless multi-currency accounts, enabling seamless international money movement for businesses and individuals alike.

Due provides 50+ markets with uninterrupted access to global liquidity by connecting various domestic payment rails around the world, while facilitating the transactions at much lower costs and significantly faster settlement times compared to existing methods.

As an example, a company in Nigeria will be able to use NGN via NIP to pay their vendor in Europe, who then can receive the payment in EUR via SEPA — instantly, at near-zero costs and with a few clicks from a single interface.

“The global payments ecosystem is riddled with inefficiencies,” explained CEO and Co-Founder Robert Sargsian. “Receiving funds from overseas, paying international vendors or even moving intracompany funds across countries is expensive, slow and hard to access. We are here to challenge and change that.”

Powered by open and interoperable decentralised ledger protocols, Due enables their Nigerian clients to use Naira to add/hold digital US Dollars and Euros in their accounts, which can then be used to send/receive funds across Sub-Saharan Africa, the UK, EEA and the US.

Notably, all Due accounts are fully non-custodial, meaning the clients maintain complete control and custody over their funds on the platform.

No intermediaries – not even Due themselves – can access the client funds in any way, providing the account holders with direct and unobstructed access without any restrictions or dependencies.

The company is headquartered in London, UK, and recently announced its $3.3 million Seed round to further develop Due’s technology and expand its fiat currency connectivity to more markets.

Due’s waitlist is now live with initial launch slated for later this month, focused on key corridors connecting Sub-Saharan Africa, the UK, EEA and the US, with expansion into Latin America (e.g. Mexico, Brazil) and Asia-Pacific (e.g. Hong Kong, Singapore) scheduled for Q1 2024.

The company is also actively working to integrate digitised Real World Assets (e.g. tokenised US Treasuries) to provide more markets with wider access to yield-bearing assets.

Robert Sargsian and Co-Founder/CTO, Alex Popov, are joined by a global team spanning across London, Lagos, Munich, New York, Sofia and Mexico City. The team brings experience from renowned companies including Revolut, Uber, Binance and Bolt.

“We want to be a driving force in transforming how the global economy runs,” shared Sargsian. “Our vision is a future where money is truly global, permissionless and inclusive.”

More About Due

Established in 2022, Due is a London-based fintech startup with a vision to reshape international payments through stablecoins and blockchain technology.

The company provides multi-currency accounts, global transfers/remittances and merchant acquiring for businesses and individuals.

Due built its platform on top of decentralised networks to enable accessible, fast, and cheap international money movements. The platform is non-custodial, enabling clients to have full control of, and direct access to, their assets without the involvement of intermediaries.