Table of Contents
What is a BIN Sponsor?
A BIN Sponsor is a company that has gained membership to a card scheme (Visa, Mastercard), and as a member has permission to sponsor other companies for them to have a BIN. A Banking Identification Number (BIN) is the 4 – 6 digits at the start of a card’s number. Without legitimate access to these numbers, it is not possible to issue cards. In brief, BIN Sponsors control these numbers, and allow their clients to use them.
Examples of them are Moorwand and Monavate, though there are many others.
What is Crypto Banking as a service (Crypto-BaaS)?
Crypto banking-as-a-service refers to companies that provide banking infrastructure —usually both crypto & fiat— for other companies to integrate into their own products. Crypto-BaaS usually offer features regarding:
- Crypto wallets
- Crypto exchanges
- vIBAN accounts for individual users
- Virtual and Physical Cards
- KYC & AML controls
Examples of them are Striga, Solid, and Synapse
Where do BIN Sponsor and Crypto BaaS overlap?
There is no overlap of functions, just of what they enable as payment solutions providers: card issuing. A BIN Sponsor provides one of the key components for card issuing. A Crypto-BaaS like Striga relies on the BIN Sponsor —or even on a banking service provider with a BIN Sponsorship— for this component, and also connects to a Card Bureau and Card Processor to manufacture the physical and virtual payment cards and process the transactions. Then, it bundles them and offers “card-issuing” to its clients.
Striga Vs. Moorwand
Time to Market
Moorwand: Integrating to a BIN Sponsor like Moorwand may take upwards of one year if you consider the necessary modifications to process standards, acquisition of documentation and licenses, and approval periods. It is usually a slow endeavor.
Striga takes between 6 weeks and 3 months to fully deploy a product, from the moment you make the decision, through the integrations, until going live.
Verdict: Striga is the faster option overall.
Striga
Moorwand
Time to Market
1.5 – 3 months
12 months
Striga Vs. Moorwand:
Financials
The usual commercial structure is broken down into two: an upfront cost, and a monthly minimum or subscription fee. Then there are transactional costs, but we won’t get into those right now, as they should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, given how many and how variable they are.
Moorwand: Their costs are not publicly available, but the industry standard is usually an upfront cost between EUR 50,000-100,000, and a monthly cost of around EUR 15,000-20,000.
Striga: The Crypto-BaaS platform of Striga charges EUR 5,000 as an upfront/integration cost, plus EUR 3,000 monthly.
Verdict: Striga is considerably cheaper both upfront and monthly than a BIN sponsor, likely Moorwand included.
Financials
Striga
Moorwand
Upfront Cost (EUR)
5,000
50,000 – 100,000
Monthly Minimum / Subscription Fee (EUR)
3,000
15,000 – 20,000
Striga Vs. Moorwand:
Services Offered
Moorwand: The company is mainly focused on enabling card payment solutions like card issuing, though their BIN range is only one component of many, a processor and manufacturer are also needed. As a bonus, it appears to offer some degree of white labeling, though not to the degree where it is enough to fully launch a crypto Neobank.
Striga: On the other hand, Striga’s Crypto-BaaS has a full list of services including, but not limited to:
- White label infrastructure
- Individual vIBAN accounts
- Physical and Virtual Card Issuing
- Apple Pay & Google Pay support (Tokenization)
- Product lifecycle management via a dashboard
Verdict: Striga offers a much more comprehensive range of services both for fiat and crypto.
Services
Striga
Moorwand
White Label Infrastructure
Yes
Yes
Individual vIBAN accounts
Yes
No
Physical and Virtual Card Issuing
Yes
Yes
Apple Pay & Google Pay support (Tokenization)
Yes
No
Product lifecycle management via a dashboard
Yes
No
Striga Vs. Moorwand :
Technical Setup
Besides the documentation being high-quality, the 4 following elements make the technical setup friendlier:
- Publicly available sandbox: Striga and Moorwand offer both publicly available sandbox
- The number of partners required: Assuming you start from scratch, to go live with a full crypto banking platform, you need Moorwand and 5 other partnerships (Wallet provider, Exchange connectivity, and KYC/AML partner). Striga, on the other hand, is already connected with all of the above, so you only need the connection to Striga.
- Interactive setup guide: Though all companies have setup guides, they tend to be static. Striga is the only one with a guide that actually connects to its servers interactively, so clients can test and learn in real time each step of the guide.
- Public API Documentation: Striga has publicly available documentation. It does not appear that Moorwand offers publicly available API docs.
Verdict: Though it requires fewer partnership integrations than other BIN Sponsors, Moorwand still needs a considerably higher number than Striga, which creates great complexity. On top of that, the information does not appear to be as readily available —except for the Sandbox— so Striga is arguably friendlier in terms of technical setup.
Technical Setup
Striga
Moorwand
Publicly Available Sandbox
Yes
No
Number of Partners Required to Go Live
1
5
Interactive Setup Guide
Yes
No
Public API Documentation
Yes
No
Striga Vs. Moorwand :
Regulation & Compliance
Once you launch a platform with the services you want and profitable financials, the only thing to worry about beyond growing your business in compliance. There are 3 core points to consider in that regard:
- KYC: Either the provider or the client company has to handle the responsibility of onboarding users and recording their data
- AML: Either the provider or the client company has to handle the responsibility of monitoring transactions to report potential money laundering
- Licenses: Either the provider or the client company has to hold a license to manage and hold virtual assets
Moorwand: Moorwand allows their clients to handle KYC and AML processes, but also offers the possibility of helping with those processes. To operate with them, the client does need to have a license of their own, especially to handle virtual assets (VASP License).
Striga: Striga handles both KYC and AML for its clients (outsourcing it isn’t an option). The client does not need to have any license or registration to handle or custody of digital currencies, as Striga takes care of that*.
- Striga is currently according to the newly updated (March 2022) Virtual Asset Service Provider License in Estonia.
Verdict: Moorwand may require more dedication in terms of setting up processes and getting licenses, but offers more flexibility as a result. Striga handles everything for you, but you don’t get the option of doing the processes yourself. Who’s best depends on each client’s needs. Flexibility? Moorwand. Cost efficiency and low effort approach? Striga.
Regulation & Compliance
Striga
Modulr
Outsourceable KYC
No
Yes
Outsourceable AML
No
Yes
Licenses or Commercial Registrations NOT Required
Yes
Yes
Verdict
Card Payment Solutions: Striga vs Moorwand
It depends on what you’re looking for.
If what you’re looking for is to build your Neobank from scratch and want to have as much flexibility to choose partners and build every component as desired, then Moorwand is a good partner. Be advised, that it will take a long time and extensive resources, but it is possible.
If what you want is a ready-made solution that you can integrate cheaply and quickly so you can focus on growing your Neobank, not building it, then Striga is the way to go.
Striga Crypto-native Banking as a Service:
Your path to building and launching financial products
Join the financial businesses that use Striga’s cloud platform to delight their customers and launch their own products without the complexities that come when dealing with core banking solutions’ relationships, licensing, compliance and payments methods.
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