Expertly navigating the intricate art of blockchain and cryptocurrency, Sanjay Mendis, the Chief Innovation Officer, and Naresh Sathasivam, the Director of Sales & Revenue Growth, of Bridge Advisory and Consulting, are showcasing their abundance of expertise, management, and leadership within the industry, driving a new digital economy and foundation in Sri Lanka.
Sanjay Mendis – Chief Innovation Officer
- A brief description of yourself and your career journey
My primary skill and expertise lie in the digital brand and technology transformation of organisations to achieve exponential revenue growth. Over the past 20 years I have consulted for global clients with measurable results, transforming markets by creating tribes for brands, making them market leaders in their space.
I have now shifted my focus to blockchain and crypto currency and consider myself an evangelist in the industry.
- What is your take on the impact that Blockchain and Cryptocurrency has on the current global economy?
There are a growing number of opportunities for digital assets that will come to the forefront in the years ahead. Investing in cryptocurrencies is only the gateway to the developing use cases for decentralised technologies. We are seeing many companies evolve from holding digital currencies on their balance sheet, to adoption of blockchain based solutions to solve real world problems. These strategic upgrades are providing a competitive edge of increased efficiency and lower costs in many industry sectors.
Adoption of consumer-focused platforms are already in play too, driving mass adoption. Square supports bitcoin buying and selling via its Cash App. PayPal announced in October 2020 that U.S. customers would be able to buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrency and use these holdings as a funding source to pay for goods at PayPal’s 26 million merchants around the world. Twitter partnered with Strike to enable Bitcoin payments globally. Mastercard announced in February 2021 that it would allow merchants to accept some cryptocurrencies later this year. Visa has teamed up with payments company Circle on a USDC digital currency corporate card. These expanding commerce payments also help drive sales volumes by expanding to new customers who prefer to transact in digital currencies.
- What is the opportunity for Sri Lanka to set up a regulated Digital Asset Exchange and what will be the benefits brought about?
Digital Asset Exchanges (DAX) will play an important role in offering participants the ability to monetise their activity over this digital infrastructure, essentially serving as the capital markets in this new emerging digital era. Digital Exchanges are the foundational infrastructure that once set up will usher in an era of new innovation and investments such as crypto banks/neobanks to do borrowing and lending, crypto custody businesses, crypto hedge funds, advisory businesses, etc. Furthermore, offering dynamic asset conversion facilities will help bridge the current legacy marketplaces with the new e-marketplaces, and allow them to co-exist for the foreseeable future. Below are a few short-term advantages.
Enable better access to local nationals;
• Reduce hassle for local investors to convert LKR into USD or stable coins
• Potentially reduce cost of conversion as intermediaries may impose higher cost
Allows easier tracking of cash movement;
• Restrictions encourage more P2P transfers and potentially unregulated Hawala channels
which would expose users to higher risks of fraud
• Regulators would be able to better monitor flows into crypto assets
Facilitates quicker return to money circulation;
• Direct and easier conversion back into LKR for circulation to stimulate the economy
The above can evolve into an efficient payment system for the entire country using a smart contract based blockchain wallet which can drive transactional values down to a mere 0.030%
Naresh Sathasivam – Director of Sales & Revenue Growth
- A brief description of yourself and your career journey
With over 20 years of experience in a wide variety of professional capacities in corporate Sri Lanka, my career has revolved around ‘Digital Technology’ in the areas of Mobile Payments, m-commerce, e-commerce, Loyalty management, Adtech, Digital Advertising, RFID and Near Field Communication Technologies.
Skilled in Strategy Development, Business Operations, Sales & Marketing, I now work as the Director for Sales and Revenue growth at Bridge Advisory and Consulting, where I play a senior role in driving growth for innovative digital business solutions in both the B2B & B2C space in Sri Lanka.
- What is the opportunity for Sri Lanka to set up a regulated Digital Asset Exchange and what will be the benefits brought about?
The first step in enabling crypto adoption in a country, is to launch a regulated exchange. At present Sri Lankans trade over $10 Million on global exchanges. However, due to unclear regulations in the country on Digital Assets there is no benefit to the larger population of the country. This will not only shape the regional fintech industry but will allow Sri Lanka to attract large scale foreign investments thus reducing balance of payment deficits.
- What was the reason that led Bridge Advisory and Consulting to focus on this novel concept?
Technology, Innovation and Money is Bridge’s ethos. We are specialists with proven expertise in driving the ‘new economy’ in Sri Lanka through emerging technology and innovative strategies empowering businesses & governments’ digital initiatives.
Having understood Sri Lanka’s vision and roadmap on the many digitization initiatives around national ID, blockchain and digital assets, we have been working with the government of Sri Lanka to set up and operate the first regulated Digital Asset Exchange (DAX) out of the Port City Colombo. This is an initiative that will drive foreign exchange into the country, and also position Sri Lanka as a nation looking at innovative approaches to drive the economy forward around Digital Assets.
We are confident that Sri Lanka will be able to capitalize on the future of blockchain by being the pioneer in the region with similar growth trajectory already observed in South East Asia’s crypto market.