Balance Achieves SOC 2 Type 2 Compliance as a Digital Asset Custodian

Balance, Canada’s oldest and largest digital asset custodian, is excited to announce it has completed a SOC 2 Type 2 evaluation with a report date of March 28th.

SOC 2 reports focus on the suitability of the design and the operating effectiveness of the internal controls designed to meet service commitments and system requirements based on the security, availability, confidentiality, processing integrity, and privacy criteria established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Unlike Type 1 reports which focus on the effectiveness of the controls at a specific point in time, Type 2 reports assess and test the controls continuously over a period of typically at least a few months. SOC 2 Type 2 certifications are widely recognized as the industry standard when it comes to evaluating vendor security.

Unlike digital asset custodians which use technology solutions such as Fireblocks and Ledger Vault and typically carve out those vendors as subservice organizations in reliance of their own SOC 2 reports, Balance had to undergo a thorough, in-depth examination of its internal controls pertaining to its proprietary offline and warm storage solution. This included an audit and verification of offline vault storage access record and related third party forms, photo and other digital evidence, as well as cryptographic checksums of signed and unsigned payloads for every single withdrawal out of offline wallets during the evaluation period.

The examination was conducted by Dansa D’Arata Soucia (DDS), a full service CPA firm based out of Buffalo, New York, which over the past decade has built a team of auditors specialized in understanding AICPA’s Trust Services Criteria and how to properly apply best practices to comply with this set of criteria in order to mitigate risk as it relates to information security.

“Although it took us over two years to progress from a Type 1 to a Type 2, in the end we’re happy we took the harder path and built our solution in-house instead of vending third-party providers. We don’t have to caveat to every client that our service commitments are achieved only if the controls at our custody technology provider operate effectively. We’re our own technology provider, so we know they operate effectively, as the Type 2 report demonstrates. There’s no substitute for this and I hope our existing and prospective clients enjoy the extra piece of mind this gives them,” says George Bordianu, co-founder and CEO of Balance.

With its SOC 2 Type 2 complete, Balance takes one more major step towards its application to incorporate a trust with Alberta’s Treasury Board and Finance.

Email contact@balance.ca to learn more and consult the SOC 2 report.

Over the past seven years, Balance successfully served digital asset exchanges, OTC and prop. trading desks, ATM networks, private funds, market makers, liquidity providers, and corporate entities across Canada and parts of the world. Balance currently custodies over $2.5 billion worth of digital assets in its proprietary platform.