Last year a neobank called Tally has launched its app. However, it does not aspire to be „just another digital bank“ but has a very original concept of how to make deposits safe. Tally is also the name of the in-app currency.
Cameron Parry, Tally’s CEO and co-founder explained to Everly.eu in an exclusive interview what is Tally all about and why he is upset with the current state of the banking system.
He is defining Tally as a company that consists of two parts. First, it is a neobank that is trying to secure its position on the market. Second, Tally is a global currency.
When customers make a deposit through the app, they are buying Tally gold at the global wholesale price, which is kept in a secure vault in Switzerland. One Tally is one milligram of physical gold.
Cameron admits Tally was inspired by the success of Bitcoin but explains what makes it different to Bitcoin as well.
„Bitcoin was a demonstration of blockchain as email was a demonstration of what can you do online,“ he adds.
However, according to Cameron Parry, Bitcoin has some issues that he dares to address. First, it goes to decimal places where it can be broken to one-hundred-millionth of the unit.
He believes that this makes Bitcoin unappealing to some potential customers to use it as a currency. It is also complicated to understand how (Bitcoin) derives its value. The third issue Cameron claims cryptos have in common is that they struggle with mass adoption.
„For mass adoption, you can offer customers one big jump but not two or three big jumps. To make people adopt the different value of their money is one massive jump to make. To make people understand how the currency derives its value is another one and to make people use it when the cup coffee is worth an absurdly low decimal number is another big jump for them.“
That‘s where comes Tally. Cameron believes gold is a wonderful source of value. When one Tally (as a currency) is worth one milligram of gold, everybody in the world will know the value. „It is the easiest direct exposure to gold on the market. But if you design money you inherently design banking. So Tally is an independent monetary system where you get the global wholesale price of gold with conversion to any currency.“
Cameron Parry has a very clear opinion on the state of today’s banking overall: „Fractional banking system is a very overleveraged model, that’s why they need bailouts. The current system is rigged against customers and it is clearly not healthy for us. The customer of a regular bank gets 1% interest, yet he is bearing all the risks. We wanted to have a form of money, that could be trusted to hold its value. The problem with today’s banking is the money itself. Also, the advantage of Tally is that control and access to the money remains with the customer.“
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According to Tally’s CEO, if you really want a global currency it can’t be issued by any government anyway. Bitcoin can be that since it is not controlled but it comes with the mentioned issues. Tally is a neobank, that’s addressing the real issue with banking.
„I genuinely believe there is a structural flaw in the current banking and monetary system and Tally is providing the cure. Obviously, the thing is not to „burn down“ the Bank of England or Pound as such, but unless you give them competition, there will be no improvement,“ Cameron Parry concludes.
