Vault

Vault: White-Label Crypto-Friendly Banking Infrastructure

Vault.ist is a Digital Banking as a Service (DigiBaaS) platform that allows businesses to launch fully branded crypto-friendly banking operations without building the underlying infrastructure themselves. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Dubai under the registered entity VAULT IST DMCC (registration number DMCC198149), the company positions itself as an end-to-end provider of the technology, compliance, and connectivity that fintech startups, crypto-native businesses, and traditional financial companies need to offer banking and cryptocurrency services under their own brand.

The Problem Vault Solves

Building a regulated, multi-currency, crypto-capable financial product from scratch is both expensive and slow. Companies face years of development time, complex regulatory licensing, and the challenge of integrating both traditional banking rails and blockchain infrastructure into a single coherent experience. Vault argues that most of this work is undifferentiated: the compliance tooling, KYC flows, card issuing infrastructure, and custody arrangements are commodity problems that every operator must solve, but that none gain competitive advantage from building themselves. Vault packages these components into a reusable platform that can be deployed under a client brand, allowing the client to focus on distribution and product differentiation rather than infrastructure.

Core Mechanism: White-Label DigiBaaS Stack

Vault operates a white-label stack comprised of middleware, customer-facing applications (web and dedicated mobile apps), and administrative tooling. Clients license the platform and receive a fully functioning product deployable in under a month. The company cites an average of 10 to 14 days for mobile app delivery. The platform connects to banking partners for fiat account infrastructure, card networks for payment card issuance, and cryptocurrency custody and liquidity providers for digital asset functionality.

The business model is subscription-based with a monthly minimum fee, supplemented by transactional revenue. Vault reports that most launched programs generate enough transactional activity to cover their costs within two to three months, with full return on investment typically achieved within a year. As of publicly available figures, the platform serves more than 75 paying clients ranging from early-stage fintech startups to established platforms with millions of users, with aggregate end-user counts exceeding one million across all deployed programs.

Key Features

Banking and Fiat Infrastructure: Vault provides individually segregated IBAN accounts accessible to users regardless of their country of residence, supporting over 40 fiat currencies and usable in more than 200 countries. Fiat balances are held in segregated accounts at institutional banks including DBS and HSBC, providing a layer of counterparty separation from operating funds.

Payment Cards: The platform offers both virtual and physical Visa payment cards in USD and EUR, issued on Vault dedicated bank identification numbers. Cards integrate with Apple Pay and Google Pay, enabling contactless payments globally. Clients can offer tiered card programs with configurable spending limits, delivery tracking, PIN management, and 3D Secure authentication support.

Cryptocurrency Wallets and On/Off-Ramps: Vault supports more than 100 cryptocurrency types, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana (SOL), Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), and many others. Users on any deployed platform can purchase crypto directly with a bank card, receive and send digital assets, exchange between supported assets, and liquidate crypto back to fiat through integrated on/off-ramp infrastructure. Cryptocurrency holdings are held in cold storage custody.

Token Utility Solutions: Vault includes a service tier specifically for clients that operate their own proprietary tokens or blockchain projects. This offering handles the integration of client-native digital assets into the broader banking and payment infrastructure, allowing custom tokens to be spent via fiat payment rails, exchanged for supported currencies, or held alongside standard crypto and fiat balances.

Compliance Infrastructure: Vault provides KYC (Know Your Customer), KYB (Know Your Business), KYT (Know Your Transaction), AML (Anti-Money Laundering), and CFT (Countering the Financing of Terrorism) tooling as embedded components of the platform. KYC verification is tiered, with basic and advanced proof-of-address levels. The compliance layer allows Vault clients to operate in regulated contexts without sourcing these capabilities independently.

Clients and Market Positioning

Vault serves several categories of operator: traditional finance companies that want to extend crypto capabilities to existing customers; cryptocurrency-first businesses that need banking rails to complement their digital asset services; gaming and social media platforms that want embedded financial features; and remittance and cross-border payment businesses. Named clients and integration partners include Morizon, Simple, Wafee, Bridgecard, Dappay, and DiamondBack.

The company tagline "Everything Under One Roof - Cards. Banking. Crypto." reflects the platform's integration of three product lines that are often built separately: fiat accounts, card programs, and cryptocurrency wallets. Vault's value proposition is that a single vendor can deliver all three, pre-integrated, under a client's own brand.

Team and History

Vault was co-founded by Austin Kimm, who serves as Chairman of the Board. Kimm previously co-founded Crypterium and is credited with involvement in producing the world's first crypto-backed payment card, which launched in 2018. His background includes CEO roles in financial services organizations processing over one billion dollars in annual revenue. The Chief Commercial Officer is Andrey Diyakonov, a United Nations Advisor of Change fellow who previously led Choise.com to more than one million registered users and held a senior sales role at LATOKEN during that exchange's growth into a top-ten global trading venue.

Vault began development in 2017. The crypto-backed payment card of 2018 was its initial public product, followed by bank checking accounts and cryptocurrency savings accounts as the service expanded into a full white-label platform.

Solana Ecosystem Fit

Vault supports Solana (SOL) as one of its natively integrated digital assets across all deployed programs, allowing end users to buy, sell, receive, and send SOL through the platform wallets and on/off-ramp infrastructure. Vault does not operate on-chain Solana programs and is not a decentralized application or DeFi protocol; it is a centralized fintech infrastructure provider that includes Solana alongside other major blockchain assets. Its relevance to the Solana ecosystem lies in the market of fintech and crypto-native operators who use Vault to serve Solana users and integrate SOL into banking and card products offered under their own brands.