THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION FOR THE PURPOSES OF REGULATION 11 OF THE MARKET ABUSE (AMENDMENT) (EU EXIT) REGULATIONS 2019/310.

17 March 2022

TINTRA PLC

 ("Tintra", the "Group" or the "Company")

RegTech firm Tintra PLC announces world's first Web 3.0 bank to power metaverse

The board of directors (the "Board") of fast-growth RegTech business, Tintra PLC announces the next stage of its strategy, previously set out in the announcement of 4 November 2021 (the "Announcement") - the development of what the Board believes to be the world's first built for purpose Web 3.0 banking platform (the "Platform"), to expand its already-extensive technological capabilities, through to the launch of of an equally innovative fully functional metaverse bank.

Though many incumbent and legacy banks are currently opening lounges and branches in the metaverse via platforms like Decentraland, Tintra intends to create the first bank capable of functioning operationally within the digital realm of the metaverse.  This logical progression in strategy is something the  Board believes sits within the timing and wider elements set out in the Announcement.

Tintra's revolutionary "borderless" approach will introduce a financial and regulatory infrastructure built solidly upon Web 3.0 technologies and concepts, including metaverse and blockchain interoperability, transparency by utilising dataless cryptographic mechanisms, and blockchain-based verification.  While the Platform will develop over time, along with these Web 3.0 technologies and concepts, it is being built on a "clean-sheet" basis rather than bolting such elements on to legacy platforms. Tintra's infrastructure will be fully compliant with current regulation, apply artificial intelligence to enhance the KYC/AML framework but include in built latency elements that the Board believes will give the business a competitive edge as the world moves into a Web 3.0 environment.

Tintra's infrastructure will not only enable financial and regulatory communication layers between currently siloed metaverse projects, but also provide a bridge to off-chain, traditional regulatory and financial systems.  Alongside providing these seamless transport and verification mechanisms for inter-chain, cross-chain and off-chain financial and regulatory activities, Tintra's technology will enable internal data risk-reduction, through verifiable "always-on" KYC. In essence, this will enable seamless transactions in the metaverse between counterparties as if they were in the real world standing next to each other.

Tintra's "borderless" technologies and IP will be protected by a suite of trademarks and patents, alongside asset purchases and infrastructural developments within existing metaverse projects.  The core trademarks and patents are expected to be filed side-by side with the development of the Platform during the next two years.

This latest proposed expansion of Tintra's technological capabilities complement its existing investments in artificial intelligence ("AI") and machine learning.  Building on its partnership with TMC2, Tintra is continuing to develop end-to-end AI-driven technologies, designed to allow emerging market financial institutions to access global banking systems.

The advanced technology the Group is developing is set, in the Board's view, to revolutionise the regulatory environment and make access to the global marketplace as seamless in Africa, Latin America or Asia tomorrow as it is in Europe or the United States today.

Discussing the vision for Tintra to become the World's first truly Web 3.0 enabled bank, Group CEO, Richard Shearer, said: "We have set out to revolutionise how developed market banks interact with their emerging market counterparts. A lot of the technologies using artifical intelligence and machine learning that I have discussed elsewhere have an interconnection with metaverse thinking. When it comes to the metaverse, it's important to take an expansive and long-term view of the terrain and its implications - especially in the context of Web 3.0.

It would be a mistake, for example, to think of the metaverse as nothing more than a branding exercise from one provider or another. Instead, I suggest thinking of the metaverse more along the lines of social media, which isn't a single, homogenous mass, but a phenomenon that contains a variety of platforms and possibilities, whether they be Facebook, Twitter, and so on.

By the same token, we anticipate that the metaverse will wear many faces and fulfil a number of discrete functions in people's lives driven by Web 3.0 protocols - a primary one being the ability to transact, which is of course our area of interest.  This can be as painless in the metaverse as it is in real life, as if two individuals were in a market, souk, or mercado. 

As I've discussed elsewhere we are building banking infrastructure that will allow us to open borders and business sectors across Asia, Africa and Latin America. Our unique thinking on this is that the methodology to achieve this is by building tomorrow's bank and then reverse engineering it back to fit today's regulatory and fiscal landscape - as opposed to others who, in our view, are taking a more bottom up approach.

We are already pushing this process of solving the AML/KYC challenges faced by emerging market individuals and businesses along rapidly with a number of in-house PhD level brains rethinking what's possible. Today's announcement is a natural next step along that same path and I look forward to sharing a lot more in the coming months on how we are opening up modern physical borders and at the same time contemplating a banking future beyond borders and perhaps even into the metaverse."

For more information, visit tintra.com.

ENDS

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