Arf Blog

ZUG and SAN FRANCISCO, June 21, 2023— Arf, a global liquidity and settlement platform, and Huma Finance, who builds infrastructure for real-world lending, have announced a partnership to introduce the world's first-ever fully transparent on-chain liquidity solution for cross-border payments. The strategic partnership addresses the current liquidity challenges in […]

Arf was selected from close to 100 applications as one of the 20 companies admitted to the CDL Oxford Fintech program and became one of five companies to graduate. We are now an alumnus of the 2022/23 Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) Fintech program! The Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) program focuses on partnering with companies that […]

ZUG and SAN FRANCISCO, March 21, 2023— Arf, the Swiss-regulated global settlement banking platform, with support from the Stellar Development Foundation, is now offering the world’s first unsecured, short-term, USDC-based working capital financing solution for licensed financial institutions.

Remittances have always been a major indicator of a country’s economic strength. With the ability to show the connections between citizens and their compatriots, this metric provides a great look into the health of nations.  When people travel abroad - whether to live or just stay temporarily - they eventually need to send money home. […]

Many believe that decentralized applications (dApps) are the future of the crypto and blockchain space. Thanks to their ability to operate autonomously, these apps provide impressive levels of efficiency and reliability. And although they still have some progress to make before they can become mainstream, dApps are definitely here to stay.  Below, we’ll explain what […]

Smart contracts are the bedrock on which many blockchains operate today. They became prominent thanks to the massive success of the Ethereum blockchain, and today, they are more than important to the overall growth of the industry.  So, what are smart contracts and how do they actually work? We’ll explain everything you need to know […]

ZUG, October 26, 2022—The VQF-regulated global settlement banking platform using Web3 technologies has raised $13m in a seed round with the participation of industry leaders including Circle Ventures, Hard Yaka, United Overseas Bank Venture Management, Signum Capital, and Stellar Development Foundation. Arf has raised $13 million in equity and debt financing in a seed round […]

ZUG, October 6, 2022—The VQF-regulated global settlement banking platform won the Silver PAY360 Award in the “Best Use of Crypto and/or Blockchain in Financial Services” category. The PAY360 winners were announced at the award ceremony in London, on October 5th. Arf, the cross-border settlement banking platform, received the Silver Award in the “Best Use of […]

You may have heard the term Total Value Locked in relation to DeFi before. But what does it mean? And why does it matter to crypto investors? What does it mean? Total Value Locked (TVL) is a metric used to indicate the value of crypto assets locked in smart contracts on any given DeFi platform, […]

CeFi vs DeFi: What Are the Main Differences? The term DeFi, short for “decentralized finance,” is quite the buzzword in the finance sphere these days. It refers to the core concept behind blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, in that financial transactions are conducted peer-to-peer globally, without centralized banks or other such intermediaries. For the uninitiated, CeFi, […]

The cryptocurrency industry has been witnessing a significant increase in activity across the board over the past few years. And while most participants in the market still believe that crypto can be a great way to make money, there are several other crypto-related concepts that have expanded beyond cryptocurrency investing and are now on the […]

ZUG, August 18, 2022—Arf, the global settlement banking platform for licensed money service businesses, announces that it has been granted the approval of the Financial Services Standard Association (VQF) through Arf’s entity in Zug, Switzerland.

What is DeFi? Short for “decentralized finance,” DeFi is a broad term that refers both to a new, digital-native financial system and to the range of digital applications and protocols that support it. As its name suggests, DeFi does not entail a centralized system akin to the traditional financial infrastructure of retail banks, multi-national financial […]

Regulations were lagging behind the rapid development and continual breakthroughs in crypto for a long time. The uncertain regulatory environment slowed down the transition to cryptoassets, but couldn’t stop stablecoins from exponentially growing.

A buzzword in the fintech space in recent years, neobanks are challengers of the traditional banking infrastructure, a digital-only option that offers direct banking to customers. Often dubbed the “disruptors” of the fintech world, neobanks eliminate the need for a network of branches as well as a whole workforce of customer representatives who essentially serve […]

Lending is - and has always been - one of the most important aspects of financial services. Over the course of history, several of the world’s greatest feats would never have been possible without the input of strong financiers who believed in certain visions and gave the funds for them to be brought into reality.  […]

During the pandemic, the old adage “cash is king” became more relevant than ever before for companies of all sizes, whose efforts to stay afloat during a global economic and health crisis largely relied on their level of liquidity. Echoing this sentiment in an exploration of the issue from the banking perspective, McKinsey & Company […]

In recent years, we’ve seen the rise of truly “global” companies, as it is easier than ever to establish businesses in new jurisdictions without needing to have a physical presence there. While this flexibility allows companies to operate on a much larger scale than before, it also comes with certain drawbacks when it comes to maintaining a well-planned […]

Arf's Perspective: Yet another so-called “algorithmic stablecoin” breaks the buck by getting caught in the inescapable trap of a bank run as all partially collateralized assets would under just enough market pressure. This time though, it was seen coming from miles away by several cryptocurrency experts since the now fallen stablecoin Terra USD’s (UST) peg […]

USDC and USDT are currently the world’s leading stablecoins, with a combined share of more than 80% of the stablecoin market. Both are backed by a proportionally 1:1 amount of traditional assets like cash, making the price of a stablecoin stay pegged to $1.  Since traditional finance hasn’t found a solution to real-time and compliant […]

MSBs of any size will know that financial planning is a vital part of running their business—and that treasury management is integral to ensuring the viability and sustainability of any such plan. Beyond simply managing the liquidity of a bank or financial institution to regulate day-to-day cash flow, a robust corporate treasury management program should […]

When dealing with a company on the other side of the world, you want to be able to effectively process and handle payments. However, with different currencies facing different levels of stability, this can sometimes be more than challenging and cause heavy loads in companies treasury operations. Especially in money transfers between countries with long […]

Access to credit has remained an unsolved financial inclusion issue for decades. Most small to medium-sized companies suffer from having no access to credit. But the situation is even more problematic in financial services. Especially money service businesses are left out, because they are considered risky with money laundering and terrorist financing concerns. While businesses […]

ZUG, April 8, 2022—Arf, the first compliant cross-border payment network running on stablecoins, announced the upcoming launch of its innovative product, Arf Credit. For the first time ever in the world, Arf Credit will provide an instant working capital credit line for money service businesses (MSBs) worldwide. Traditionally, when a money service business (MSB) wants […]