THREE QUESTIONS TO FABIEN TABARLY, DIRECTOR OF NIGMA
They are our clients, our friends, good contacts or just people we met in the crypto-community. They have new vision, they are running great projects, they are developing new services, or they just want to share their story. Havas Blockchain is interviewing key people of the blockchain ecosystem.
Let’s meet today with Fabien Tabarly, director of Nigma :
- First of all, can you present Fabien Tabarly and Nigma?
Fabien TABARLY is a recently retired French Cavalry officer with strong operational and strategic experience in various operational airborne units. He served in high-risk countries such as Bosnia, Afghanistan and Kosovo to name a few, and on several theaters of operations in Africa and the Middle East. In 2009, he specialized middle eastern studies with his natural aptitude inlearning several languages, and recently decided to settle in Libanon after having served three years as cooperation officer to the Lebanese army. He was honored in 2018 with the French National Order of Merit.
In 2018, NIGMA consulting was launched based on Market demands, with a strong will to put forward the highly skilled local resources in the technological field and contribute as such to the national Lebanese ecosystem. “We want to help the Lebanese engineers to have an alternative to expatriation…we want to help create jobs! We want to generate a strong dynamic in the filed of new technologies locally.”
NIGMA:
NIGMA a security consulting and intelligence firm which has been developing expertise in Blockchain Analysis and Forensics while conducting Preventive Risk Assessment and Tailored Solutions for Corporate Clients. NIGMA contributes to research and development in the blockchain intelligence field through its partnerships with universities and think-thanks on regulation. It also offers cyber security consulting services with branches in Europe and the middle east .
NIGMA’s Motto explicitly describes its essence: “we dare to go where others won’t”
2. And now, can you present e-Nigma?
Today, around 80% of virtual assets service providers don’t have full know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering procedures. Banks are already starting to expose their customers to new digital assets, but the space needs a better regulatory framework to avoid fraud, scams and money-laundering. Now that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has issued guidance that would see governments implement regulations for actors dealing with cryptocurrencies to monitor transactions and identify the sender and beneficiary of all cryptocurrency transfers worth above USD 1.000, the need for tools like e-NIGMA is acute.
We have developed a web-based SaaS platform for virtual assets service providers (VASP), banks, and law enforcement agencies to analyze cryptocurrency addresses based on transaction behavior, generate a risk score, vizualize the transaction history, set alerts on wallets and customers and so on. e-Nigma tags millions of wallets based on powerful clear and dark web screening as well as targeted open-source intelligence, to identify their real-life owners: safe or risky exchanges, scammers, hackers, darknet marketplaces, mixing services, gambling websites, mining pools, terrorist organizations…
All information can be dispatched on a PDF Suspicious Actity Report (SAR) that can then be submitted for audit or as a proof in a legal procedure. Our investigation teams also provide our clients with Enhanced Due Diligence investigations whenever necessary. NIGMA is currently working on solutions that would allow for also execute a query on an e-mail or IP address.
3. A word on the blockchain ecosystem in Libanon?
There is a small Blockchain community in the country that used to be limited by the political context and exhaustion of government funding for innovation. The official position has changed and is beginning to actively promote Lebanon as a digital and tech hub. Incubators and accelerators are emerging to boost the ecosystem. The blockchain in particular arouses the curiosity of many local actors and in particular the central bank, whose governor confirmed in June 2019 that its teams were working on a digital version of the Lebanese pound.
It must be said that financial technologies, including blockchain, are still almost absent from the Lebanese banking landscape even though they are flourishing abundantly in Egypt, Jordan, not to say the United Arab Emirates. However, more and more Lebanese, especially those from the diaspora, have understood that these technologies have a future in a country that was perceived as a Middle Eastern Switzerland a few decades ago. With an unbanked population exceeding 50% and, above all, a diaspora of over 12 million Lebanese around the world, the potential impact of the blockchain and digital currencies on the country’s economy is glaring.
The United Nations Development Program in Lebanon in the field of energy management, Vistory for e-commerce and oil industry, BlocRecsin the fight against diploma fraud, are examples of interesting projects… There is no shortage of entrepreneurial expertise in Lebanon. That’s why Nigma has has been seeking to bring together the local Lebanese Blockchain ecosystem and the diaspora to create strategic synergies and partnerships.
