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Momentum is building

Connect Financial is excited to share the latest developments as we move closer to rollout. We're unveiling key updates that bring us one step closer to delivering a powerful product.

3-5 MIN READ / INDUSTRY ARTICLE
Perfecting the Process

The great news is that both Credit and Debit VISA BINs are live and in a production state. What is even more exciting for us is that the test transactions have been made against them successfully. That is a huge testament to the development that’s gone into not only our platform and user-interface portion of things, but really the back-end processes that go into supporting it all.

We need this to be robust — transactions start from the moment you go into a merchant and place your card in the reader, flow through the VISA network, and into your account on Connect Financial’s platform. That’s no small process, given the security, speed, and accuracy with which the platform needs to complete this task. Coupled when dealing with the scale and volume of transactions as we grow.

During this process, we’re measured against a number of standards through a series of testing, which includes ISO, among others. In order to fully go live, the testing has to happen, and then we need to be certified as being compliant. Naturally, this creates a dependency on third-party suppliers of certification services and the VISA network themselves, and it is no small task given the level of documentation that needs to be covered.

While ISO is one standard that most will have heard of, another quite common requirement for compliance is PCI-DSS Level 2. Everything on this certification pathway has been completed, with the exception of some final security vulnerability checks, which are again dependent on a third party to complete certification and issue the compliance certificate.

The great news here is that we don’t expect any major work to be created as a result of this process, but we’re beholden to this process to obtain sign-off.

From a community perspective, the piece of the Connect Financial suite of products you will interact with most is the portal, and the great news here is that the work is mostly complete. Of course, with any internal testing process and an ability to stand back and review what we’ve built, there is an element of making small tweaks and enhancements to make this as good as it can be. While we have the time dependency on third-party partners to complete certification, we’re using this as an opportunity to further refine the process flow and customer journeys to ensure the experience is as strong as it can be.

It’s important to us because a customer’s lifecycle with us, their commitment, and loyalty to us as a service provider are strongly linked to the first impression. Let’s not beat around the bush; for people to trust us and for this project to fly, their first and every interaction thereafter must be as optimal as possible, given that we’re being entrusted with users’ hard-earned money.

This leads nicely into the next steps that we foresee happening in succession as things progress.

Pre-Release Beta Testing

As a financial platform, adherence to strict compliance and security standards is non-negotiable — not only internally by our team, but also by our partners and vendors, such as VISA and our banking partners. Until all the necessary certifications and security validation checkpoints are cleared, we’re unable to open the platform up to anyone outside of the core team.

As we do move into the testing phase, which will be as soon as we have the all-clear from all sides, and all required certifications have been issued, we’ve developed a testing plan that opens up the platform in cohorts. The first cohort has already been identified, and access will be rolled out to additional cohorts over the space of several weeks once testing begins.

Note, that to become an official tester, there may be additional requirements that will need to be met, including the commitment to utilizing actual funds when interacting with the platform and documentation, which may include full KYC and a signed mutual NDA. These requirements will be communicated with testers as soon as it becomes appropriate.

Hopefully, this provides clarity and helps mitigate the need for you as a community to request details on this going forward.

The Roll Out

Given the size and the breadth of coverage of the product suite, launching everything on day one would be an ambitious goal. To ensure a successful rollout of all aspects of the suite, we’ve created a rollout plan that provides quite substantial product availability on day one, followed by a quick rollout of the rest of the suite post-successful launch.

The Launch

On the first day, we anticipate users will be able to create new credit cards, issue virtual cards, manage collateral, and deposit and withdraw assets. Digital wallet creation and OTC trading with the ability to buy and sell major asset pairs will also be available.

A big part of the platform that we’re excited about is the commitment of CNFI and the ability to manage and upgrade memberships to take advantage of the raft of benefits available at higher tiers. As such, the day-one platform capability will include the ability to commit CNFI for a membership and upgrade to higher tiers as you need and see fit.

A final set of products on day one will be the ability to create bank accounts, and depositing and withdrawal of USD will be available. Debit cards linked to a bank account will also be available at this step.

Shortly after the initial launch the issuance of our physical cards (both debit and credit) will become available. The delay between virtual and physical is due to our manufacturing lead time. This is an exciting step for us as we’re looking forward to seeing you guys share your unboxing moments with us on social media!

The rewards portal is another big benefit and offering of our product suite, and during this step the ability to redeem reward points will become available. This incorporates the travel and hotel booking section of our portal, where you’ll have the ability to book exciting trips and get access to exclusive events and deals to really begin taking advantage of what we’ve got to offer.

You can expect and anticipate that we will continue to roll out more and more benefits related to memberships regularly, ensuring you’re always getting maximum value out of being a Connect Financial user.

As Connect Financial and the CNFI token become more widespread and in demand, the ability to rebalance your membership commitments, as well as rebalance your collateral balances, will become available to manage right from your portal.

Marketing

Marketing has already begun in the form of various X campaigns and crypto-specific advertising networks, and we’re currently monitoring, assessing, and tweaking our campaigns based on initial analytics on performance. Watch this space for more marketing, and don’t forget to interact, share, and comment to drive reach and the algorithm.

One of the big plans for our go-to-market strategy is partnering with Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) and media companies that can help put our product offering in front of relevant people and a wider audience and, in line with our values and company ethos, are actively searching out key partners in this regard.

This is an exercise that needs to be managed right, and the selection process of who we partner with must be executed from a position of mutual trust and representation of our core values.

To support and supplement our go-to-market plans, we have a number of press releases in the pipeline, which include the previously mentioned official VISA announcement. As we touched upon earlier, the release of this type of PR is dependent on the full and successful certification process, which we’re very near the end of, but it still presents a gate we must pass to have the PR released.

Stay the Course

As we near the release of our seminal product suite, representing a lot of hard work and graft by our internal teams, our partners, and external third parties, rest assured that we’re moving in absolutely the right direction, and we look forward to releasing the fruits of our labors in the near future.

We’re just as excited to see this come to life as our community is, and we’ll be communicating in earnest with you about the rollout as soon as possible!

In the meantime, thank you for your continued support. We look forward to bringing you guys into the Connect Financial ecosystem soon and can’t wait to see how it benefits our community and users to the fullest.

Join the Priority Waitlist Today

As anticipation builds for the official launch, Connect Financial invites interested individuals to join the priority waitlist. Early registrants will be among the first to experience this innovative financial solution. Reserve your card today and take control of your financial future.

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