Antwerp World Diamond Center Partners With FX4BIZ, Uphold

With the ongoing diamond industry’s global crisis, Antwerp World Diamond Center (AWDC), an industry-established foundation whose mission is to serve and support the diamond business in Belgium, has turned to two fintech companies – FX4BIZ and Uphold – to meet the industry’s alternative financial services needs for international transactions.

AWDC pointed out that the total trade value (of diamonds imported and exported) declined from 58.8 billion dollars in 2014 to 48.3 billion dollars in 2015 in Antwerp – a decline of nearly 18%. Moreover, competitors such as India and Israel endured much steeper declines, it said.

“The world’s diamond trade is currently under duress, with a global decline in sales across the board”, it said.

AWDC said it is starting a pilot program with the two companies to facilitate fast, transparent and instant international transactions. A total of 60 diamond companies will be able to sign up for these two pilot projects that will run for a full year. AWDC will be holding a seminar to explain the project to the diamond companies.

Uphold launched in 2014 as BitReserve – a cloud based financial service that enabled users to transfer deposits of bitcoin into reserve-backed currencies and commodities allowing anyone with a device to send, receive, and exchange money and commodities for free. However, in a major overhaul, the company rebranded itself as Uphold and now allows members to add funds to their Uphold accounts via bank transfer or by linking credit or debit cards, in addition to bitcoin.

“With Uphold, AWDC and the thousands of diamond traders they represent can move, hold, transact, clear and settle in any currency or form of value they choose - all securely with real-time transparency and traceability. By removing all forex spreads, costs and settlement delays from Antwerp’s $50bn yearly diamond trade, Uphold will save industry businesses tens of millions of dollars every year. Uphold's unique next generation platform will allow Antwerp diamond dealers to immediately transact, clear and settle all trades in over 190 countries with zero waiting, delays or limitations”, said Uphold CEO Anthony Watson.

Watson further said that they will be opening their 3rd European office in Antwerp and it will directly support AWDC and the diamond traders it represents on the ground and globally.

FX4BIZ, founded in 2012, is a fintech company based in Brussels that helps companies to manage more actively and efficiently their incoming and outgoing forex payments. It is a belgian private company, licensed and regulated by the National Bank of Belgium in quality of Payment Service Provider (PSP) under the Payment Services Regulations and Electronic Money regulations (2009).

“We are highly motivated to work with AWDC in building a tailor-made and sustainable bank infrastructure for this industry. We are convinced that the key success factors on this project will be AWDC’s capacity to share its expertise and our ability to comply with strict international regulatory constraints”, said FX4BIZ CFO Patrick Mollard.