By Shanelle Weir From PanAmerican World

The Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory in the western Caribbean Sea and a major world offshore financial center, are betting on new financial technologies based on the Bitcoin blockchain, Cayman Compass reports.

A new company, Latitude, which provides seed capital and mentorship programs to tech ventures could potentially bring dozens of cutting-edge startup companies to Cayman Islands. Latitude aims to begin its program in Cayman Enterprise City in January, subject to the necessary approvals. Latitude founder Arthur Corry says:

“Our purpose as an accelerator is to structure ourselves so that we provide all of the services that a company needs exactly in that phase of their development. By the time they graduate from the program, they have everything in place to scale up rapidly.”

The firm will bring groups of tech companies to the special economic zone for mentoring and development to help the startups attract their first round of venture capital funding. All of the tech ventures will register as special economic zone companies, and team members will obtain zone employment certificates.

The Financial Industry Is in the Early Stages of a Radical Upgrade

Cayman Islands’ special economic zone offers the ideal, lightly regulated environment where new business ventures, and in particular financial technology companies, can set up quickly, innovate and then launch their software globally.

The Latitude website says:

The Latitude Network holds the ultimate expertise in Blockchain Tech, perhaps the most important information technology since the internet itself. Emerging from Bitcoin & other decentralized & peer2peer apps, Blockchain tech is rapidly evolving to service sectors like law, governance, security, & more.

Fintech holds perhaps the most power over people’s lives & over markets. Bittorrent file sharing & other streaming technologies disrupted & transformed the music industry. Now we see the financial industry in the early stages of a radical upgrade through technologies emerging from innovations such as the Blockchain & its fraud-proof open ledger.

Latitude’s startup acceptance criteria extends outward from Blockchain & Fintech across associated sectors. We seek true innovation & next generation technologies. The Blockchain & Fintech sector is creating the most innovation of any tech sector at the moment & its apps will push across sectors.

Latitude is also sponsoring the International Blockchain Summit on January 21st, 2015.

For more on this story go to: http://www.panamericanworld.com/en/article/bitcoin-fintech-acceletator-open-cayman-islands