Arf

Arf is a Swiss-regulated global liquidity and settlement platform that provides digital asset-based working capital and payment services to licensed financial institutions and money service businesses (MSBs).

The company was founded in 2019 by Ali Erhat Nalbant, Berhan Kongel, Kazım Rıfat Özyılmaz, and Ahmet Özcan. Ali Erhat Nalbant, the CEO, is a serial entrepreneur with a background in software development and consulting at Deloitte. Kazım Rıfat Özyılmaz has a background in software engineering and blockchain consulting. Berhan Kongel is also a serial entrepreneur and served as the operations director for eleman.net, an online recruitment platform. The founders identified a significant challenge in the cross-border payments industry: the necessity for MSBs to pre-fund accounts in destination countries, which ties up vast amounts of working capital. This issue, estimated to lock up over $4 trillion globally, creates operational inefficiencies and limits growth.

Arf's core offering, Arf Credit Line, provides unsecured, short-term working capital credit lines, primarily using USDC stablecoins, built on the Stellar network. This allows MSBs to access liquidity for 1-5 day terms, enabling them to facilitate real-time, same-day settlements without needing to pre-fund or provide collateral. The business model centers on charging interest or fees for the credit used. Clients, which are licensed financial institutions, are onboarded after a creditworthiness assessment. When a payment order is received, Arf sends USDC to the client's payout partner, who then facilitates the local currency payout. The client repays Arf within the agreed short-term period. This process leverages blockchain for speed, transparency, and lower costs compared to traditional correspondent banking and SWIFT rails.

In October 2022, Arf raised $13 million in a seed round from investors including Circle Ventures, the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), UOB Venture Management, Hard Yaka, and Signum Capital. The company holds a VQF license in Switzerland, ensuring compliance with anti-money laundering regulations. As of March 2024, Arf had surpassed $1 billion in on-chain liquidity volume. Keywords: cross-border payments, working capital, liquidity solutions, stablecoin settlement, money service business, USDC credit line, fintech, blockchain finance, real-time settlement, treasury management, payment financing, digital assets, Stellar network, financial institutions, on-chain liquidity, regulated fintech, trade finance, global payments, RWA tokenization, payment rails