Speaker 1: Hey everyone, We are recording at Halburn's Access Summit at
Speaker 1: the New York Stock Exchange and joining me is Jacques Bouchang,
Speaker 1: who is the CEO of Halburn. Jack, great to see.
Speaker 2: You, great to be here. Nice to have you with
Speaker 2: us today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really excited. I love what Alburn is doing. I
Speaker 1: love this summit And did you guys are put together?
Speaker 1: You know, security is such a core pillar for this
Speaker 1: asset class, the crypto acid class to grow. So we
Speaker 1: last spoke in the Q four of last year at
Speaker 1: the chin Lay conference.
Speaker 2: Indeed we did. Yeah, yeah, So what's.
Speaker 1: New with Halburn? What can you tell us as far
Speaker 1: as updates?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's new with Alborne is that we have a
Speaker 2: fiscal year behind us, which is good. It was a
Speaker 2: great year. We had a fantastic Q four. We see
Speaker 2: a lot of traction, which is a reflection on the
Speaker 2: traction of digital asset in the market itself. Yes, we
Speaker 2: see a lot of adoption which is also rally from
Speaker 2: traditional financial institution into that new class of assets. But
Speaker 2: also even more importantly from my perspective, in the tokenization
Speaker 2: of asset being the new promise.
Speaker 1: Land right, Yeah, the toganization race has really heated up.
Speaker 1: A lot of big institutions, many on Wall Street, bank
Speaker 1: stock exchanges, and fintech firms are tokenizing assets and many
Speaker 1: different assets.
Speaker 2: They do. They do, but you know what, it's not
Speaker 2: even the beginning of the beginning if you think about it.
Speaker 2: I was speaking yesterday. We were running a big workshop
Speaker 2: with twenty of the most important financial institutions on digital
Speaker 2: asset custody. So the topic was how to optimize what
Speaker 2: are the difference versus classical type of facets and one
Speaker 2: of the participants represented a very large bank. It told us, oh,
Speaker 2: we have one smart contract, so you see, still a
Speaker 2: long way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so tip of the iceberg, right, yes, yes, yes
Speaker 1: we believe.
Speaker 2: You know, most probably we add in twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: something like twenty two billion of ascetic equivalent tokenized and
Speaker 2: most probably this market could be as big as a
Speaker 2: thirty trillion in twenty thirty four. So depending on the forecast.
Speaker 2: For instance, cities are seeing something like five trillion for
Speaker 2: twenty thirty of tokenized assets. So it's it's gaining momentum. Jaques.
Speaker 1: It feels like they're taking the entire trad fire world
Speaker 1: and putting it on chain. It seems that's the end goal.
Speaker 1: We're gonna put all assets on chain and open up
Speaker 1: a whole new world of markets twenty four to seven trading,
Speaker 1: global liquidity coming in from different parts of the world.
Speaker 2: And access and fraction able to find. So that's incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I wish this is really the thing that will happen.
Speaker 2: So we at Alborne we call that the third digital
Speaker 2: revolution of the financial industry. To think about it, eighties
Speaker 2: nineties that was just digitizing stuff. Then twenty ten and
Speaker 2: so on, it was the cloudification of things which happened,
Speaker 2: which is not complete. We still have plenty of a
Speaker 2: cobbol on mainframe in banks, and now that new transformation
Speaker 2: which is even more impactful because it's not only putting
Speaker 2: digital things which were in the physical world, but it's
Speaker 2: much more transforming completely some of the key processes, some
Speaker 2: of the core tenets of the banking system. So we
Speaker 2: are very excited about what's happening and we are here
Speaker 2: to make it safe.
Speaker 1: So it's allks about the summit that we're at today,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of institutions that are here. It's
Speaker 1: amazing the names Swift and much more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we have great names. Indeed, both in the
Speaker 2: audience and on stage. That's absolutely right. We have large
Speaker 2: banks like Socieation General, the French Bank, but we have
Speaker 2: also the FinTechs. You know, we partner with gray Scale,
Speaker 2: we have people from Robin Wood, so we have a
Speaker 2: very broad i would say representation of the financial services market.
Speaker 1: Indeed, yeah, it seems everyone Jacques maybe last year with
Speaker 1: the change of the approach to crypto in the US,
Speaker 1: it opened up for everyone, stock exchanges, banks, financial institutions,
Speaker 1: they now have to have a crypto strategy.
Speaker 2: It was a kind of unleash the potential effect.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So first the Genius Act, which is solving a lot
Speaker 2: of questions around stable con which is really making a
Speaker 2: big difference. And now everybody is working on this Clarity Act.
Speaker 2: By the way, we had we had one of those
Speaker 2: panels today at the end the moderate or ask about, okay,
Speaker 2: what about the Clarity Act? Will that happen, what will
Speaker 2: be the impact, because it's really classifying those assets in
Speaker 2: the right buckets, like a utility token, which are cryptocurrency
Speaker 2: essentially being ruled by the CFTC as opposed to of
Speaker 2: course organized bonds, which we'll stay with SEC. So I
Speaker 2: think we are. We are getting in a lot of clarity,
Speaker 2: as the name calls for it, and it will require
Speaker 2: when we get there, a lot of discipline from everybody,
Speaker 2: especially in the financial institution, in really taking into consideration
Speaker 2: the risk which are linked with that potential. So it's
Speaker 2: both opportunity and a massive risk, and we can certainly
Speaker 2: speak about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's let's talk about that. You know the institutions, Howard,
Speaker 1: what are their thoughts when they come to you? They
Speaker 1: help burn Jacques rob can you help us to have
Speaker 1: a security strategy and to make sure we're doing things
Speaker 1: right when we set up our smart contracts or re tokenizing.
Speaker 2: So when we speak about those institutions, we are not
Speaker 2: speaking about I would say a monolytic block of people
Speaker 2: in the bank. You have compliance, you have legal department,
Speaker 2: you have cyber security, you have the product team. Within
Speaker 2: the product team, you have the guys in charge of
Speaker 2: digital asset okay, and you have a competing forces. So
Speaker 2: you have the digital asset guys who wants to go
Speaker 2: fast and make it happen and they don't want to
Speaker 2: miss you know the famous statement fear of missing out.
Speaker 2: So it's really that what's happening. But then you have
Speaker 2: the guardrails of all the big financial institution, which are
Speaker 2: legal compliance and cybersecurity. So in many instances we are
Speaker 2: a sort of bridge because at Alborne, so first we
Speaker 2: are fully dedicated to financial services. This is the business
Speaker 2: we understand. Okay. Second, we are indeed speaking the language
Speaker 2: of the cyber security guy because we do a lot
Speaker 2: of things in what I call the whip to cyber security.
Speaker 2: But we also understand fully what the digital asset team
Speaker 2: wants to achieve and accomplish. So we are able then
Speaker 2: to create that bridge with everybody. So in many cases,
Speaker 2: I know many cases where we have been used to
Speaker 2: make the education of everybody, putting sixty executive in a
Speaker 2: room from all those different discipline banking discipline, and we
Speaker 2: do the education to try to create that common denominator.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, that's really great insight because there's so
Speaker 1: many stakeholders, as you said, within an organization, you have
Speaker 1: to get them all on the same page educate them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that absolutely makes sense.
Speaker 2: So this year I was sup, if I may real quick,
Speaker 2: I was speaking with a very large asset manager today,
Speaker 2: the head of the digital asset product strategy, and she's
Speaker 2: that person is recruiting team, her team, but she's very
Speaker 2: much aware of those internal hurdles sort of she will
Speaker 2: have to face because there is still this confusion digital
Speaker 2: asset is cliptocurrency, and then there is this gray zone
Speaker 2: and money laundry and violation of KYC and all that,
Speaker 2: and we are speaking about something else here.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, it's a lot of moving parts and components.
Speaker 2: Yes, and we we are here really to help. We
Speaker 2: are here to help because when also that's also a
Speaker 2: very important conversation with the classical cyber security team. The
Speaker 2: classical cyber security team in the bank, they are used
Speaker 2: to web to space. They are used to threat which
Speaker 2: can be apt so advanced persistent threat, but which are
Speaker 2: more in a sense for you know what, ransomware type
Speaker 2: of things or data leak or combination of both, where
Speaker 2: you can really do classical manage detection and response, whereas
Speaker 2: in Web three on chain there is no such a
Speaker 2: thing as response because when the bad guys are on chain,
Speaker 2: the money is out almost immediately, yes, okay, and you
Speaker 2: don't have that in the web too classical world, even
Speaker 2: for a functional institutions. So that's why you need to
Speaker 2: shift cyber security to the left to do preventive cybersecurity.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And I'm assuming you're seeing incredible demand because
Speaker 1: a lot of these institutions now have a crypto strategy.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like your business is growing and there's
Speaker 1: going to be even probably more demand this year. Yes,
Speaker 1: once legislation and these things get Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's growing. We see the momentum. We are surfing
Speaker 2: tide currently. But it's also because we are most probably
Speaker 2: as far as I'm concerned, the only provider of that
Speaker 2: type of service is sitting at this intersection of Web two,
Speaker 2: Web three, CRATI FI, DeFi. We understand all those worlds.
Speaker 2: We have eight hundred customers in total. Of course, a
Speaker 2: lot of them are smaller Web three type of entities
Speaker 2: of DeFi, you know, of a decentralized exchange, all those guys.
Speaker 2: But we have more and more enterprise class customers. In
Speaker 2: fact or enterprise class customer business grew by four hundred
Speaker 2: persons here on here in twenty five. So that's where
Speaker 2: the big big game is happening. Oh.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So what's on your rob map? You know, what
Speaker 1: are the high priorities for you this year?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So in terms of a priority, so we are
Speaker 2: so we are. We are automating a lot of our
Speaker 2: operation okay, and I will not use the AI buzzworld,
Speaker 2: but it's pervasive at our in our systems. AI is
Speaker 2: pervasive in our value chain, okay. So it's supporting every
Speaker 2: step we are doing with the customer, from the scoping
Speaker 2: to the project to the final report. You know what
Speaker 2: I mean. This is what what we are doing with AI.
Speaker 2: So we will continue to advance that and to make
Speaker 2: it even more and more agile and lean so that
Speaker 2: customers are relegating the highest value for their money and
Speaker 2: also the highest quality because AI is efficiency but also
Speaker 2: effectiveness delivering the right level of quality. That's one thing.
Speaker 2: The second thing we really want to focus on strongly
Speaker 2: on a custody because digital asset custody is one of
Speaker 2: the big challenges. It's a totally different discipline than traditional custody.
Speaker 2: If you wish traditional custody, it's a pointer to a
Speaker 2: central security depository right with some legal and process constraint.
Speaker 2: Whereas digital asset custody it's a technical discipline with all
Speaker 2: the processes constraint on top. So you need to master
Speaker 2: that technical discipline. So we are doing a lot of that.
Speaker 2: We'll be publishing white paper on that to help our
Speaker 2: customers structure their thinking around all those class season assets.
Speaker 1: That's exciting, Jack, and I'm really excited to listen to
Speaker 1: some of the talks today and everything that's happening here Access.
Speaker 1: But thank you so much for joining me, Thanks for
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