Multinational insurance and asset management company AXA is eyeing bitcoin to help streamline the remittance market, the general partner of its VC fund has told CoinDesk.
Minh Q Tran said AXA Strategic Ventures, the firm's $223m fund, and its accelerator, AXA Factory, are treating digital currency as an "investment thesis".
He said:
Beyond remittance
Aside from bitcoin's use in the remittance market, AXA is exploring how blockchain technology could be used in fields such as real estate, wealth management, intellectual property and – crucially – insurance. This news coincides with today's announcement of Kamet, the bank's £111m 'InsurTech' incubator.
Although banking remains a risk-averse industry, many big name firms are now exploring the potential of blockchain technology through their VC arms.
Spain's Bankinter became the first bank to fund a bitcoin company, Coinffeine, last November following an undisclosed investment from its Innovation Foundation. Firms including BBVA have since followed suit.
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Others are exploring custom technologies via in-house R&D. UBS has a year-long residency in London FinTech incubator Level 39 to work out proof-of-concepts that could benefit its stakeholders. Meanwhile, Ken Moore, the head of Citi's Innovation Labs, revealed the bank was testing its own cryptocurrency, Citicoin.
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