Ivan Montik, Belarusian IT trend-changer

Ivan Montik is a well-known IT entrepreneur from Belarus. He is a founder of SOFTSWISS, Bgaming and Merkeleon - companies with more than seven hundred employees. Ivan is also a co-founder of a proprietary built platform for servicing tax lien transactions called Unique Exchange. Currently, he is running several projects in the field of iGaming and fin-tech. Being a cryptocurrency enthusiast, Ivan has founded crypto payment processing systems for iGaming, streaming, PSP and e-commerce - CryptoProcessing.com and CoinsPaid.

Ivan Montik's Education

Ivan was born into a family of teachers in the capital of Belarus, Minsk. He graduated from the State Linguistic Gymnasium-College №24 placed in his hometown. That educational institution was a place where Montik gained deep knowledge of the German language and English language. Ivan has an opinion that the profound learning of foreign languages was a mainstay of his career path. The ability to communicate freely with foreign partners and colleagues was useful in media projects, client management at a bank and chiefly in the IT industry.

In 2000, Ivan Montik attended BSU - Belarusian State University. His initial choice was the Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science. After he took in the material of programme development information and communications technology, Ivan decided to change his area of expertise to economics and management. For doing this, he switched to the Department of International Management (BSU Faculty of Economics) in 2003. Two years later, in 2005, he received a bachelor's degree in Business Administration. Also, it bears mentioning that, in 2007, Montik got credentialed with a certificate in the Credit Analysis of the DC Gardner Training.

Career history of Ivan Montik

The first career step Ivan made in his early twenties. In cooperation with a school friend, he opened a car wash. That business was sold at a premium in two years. Straight after university graduation, Ivan Montik started employment with Priorbank JSC, Raiffeisen Group occupying the position of a client manager. In the years 2007 - 2010, he grew grey in mass media management and journalism. At that time, Ivan was working at a subsidiary of the Ukrainian magazine Bigmir.net in Belarus called Mir-Internet. In the beginning, he was the head of marketing. Soon enough, Montik was already at the head of the company - he became a director and the main representative of Bigmir in Belarus.

SOFTSWISS

The first move in Montik's entrepreneurship was the foundation of the SOFTSWISS company. For the first little while, it was a custom software development enterprise with a focus on different IT projects and outsourcing services for a variety of industries. Due to the passage of time, Softswiss changed its focus to the development of its own software products. The first couple of projects included an online casino platform branded by SOFTSWISS and an online auction software under Merkeleon's trademark.

In 2013, in London, Softswiss online casino platform was presented by Ivan Montik for the first time at the ICE Totally Gaming show. To that moment, the company developed into a turnkey white-label solution for online casinos and sports betting software operators. It was accompanied by Bitcoin online gaming solutions, affiliate software and online casino games with sports betting. That made SOFTSWISS a top-tier developer of high-quality products. Several online gaming businesses powered by solutions developed by SOFTSWISS were rewarded with numerous industry awards, like “Players’ Choice”, “Best Casino of the Year” and “Best New Casino of the Year” by the version of the world most reliable, unbiased and trustworthy Internet source about online gambling - AskGamblers.com.

Merkeleon, Bgaming, CryptoProcessing.com, CoinsPaid and Unique Exchange

Merkeleon is a brand that Ivan Montik founded in cooperation with a partner from Austria. The main purpose of the enterprise was the development of the eCommerce-Auction Software and B2B Crypto-Solutions and its promotion. For now, Merkeleon has branched out into Crypto-Currency Exchange Software and Crypto-Currency Processing, Merchant Solution and Custodian Services and OTC.

SOFTSWISS group brand Bgaming is a game provider focused mainly on the development of proprietary online games for Internet casinos. It was founded in February 2018 by Ivan Montik. Its portfolio includes over sixty game titles of different types made in full HD format with the use of an HTML5 basis. Bgaming develops different games from casino games like roulette, poker and some table games to slots.

Ivan Montik is a well-known cryptocurrency enthusiast. Due to the advanced knowledge of cryptocurrencies and blockchain, he was the first businessman who turned the idea of usage cryptocurrency payments in the online entertainment industry into reality. Ivan successfully managed the implementation of the Bitcoin payment processing technology into online gaming. In 2013 the Bitcoin Casino Solution was introduced by SoftSwiss to the world. It was a revolutionary product that made the company a market leader in an instant.

With a Softswiss team, he gained a stored knowledge of payment processing via bitcoin and solid experience in blockchain technologies working on company projects. Received knowledge and skills became a fertile ground for the establishment of two new brands in 2018. CoinsPaid, a multi-currency wallet for personal use, was the first one. This coin payment system provides open-ended opportunities for blockchain payments and embraces more than fifteen cryptocurrencies. The other brand was a crypto payment solution CryptoProcessing.com, designed for online businesses. Both products were licensed in Estonia. Also, CoinsPaid and CryptoProcessing.com were audited by Kaspersky.

A new unique venture capital project was co-founded by Ivan Montik in 2013. It was managed to build a platform with the aim of selling and buying real-estate-backed tax debt. The product became a breakthrough thing on the market with no analogs. Unique Exchange brought innovative trading technologies for a more effective tax lien investment and digitised the tax lien sector.

Ivan Montik Public Initiatives

For now, Ivan is responsible for company operations, strategic planning and also finances and development. Ivan's depth of experience in business analysis, intimate knowledge of project management, sales, marketing and production management morphed into a great success for his company.

Ivan Montik is a regular participant of different shows and conferences all over the globe in capacity of the internationally acclaimed cryptocurrency expert. He held presentations at Bitcoin Conference in October 2015 in Minsk; Bitcoin Conference in April 2015 in Prague; Minsk Igaming Affiliate Conference in April 2019; Berlin Affiliate Conference in 2017 and London Affiliate Conference in 2017.

Montik is a person of considerable talent, widely known as a serial entrepreneur and a highly experienced senior executive. He achieved howling success as a company promoter and provider of the capital of growing businesses. But his interests are not limited to business. Ivan is a great believer in independent journalism, freedom of expression and liberty of printing. He even affixed his signature to the European Charter on Freedom of the Press. Ivan Montik also became one of the founding members of the European Center for the Freedom of Press based in Leipzig.

Ivan Montik and his business partners are regular donators to the organization specialized in medical help for children with hard brain and oncological diseases, Khabensky’s Charity fund.

In the time of spring events in 2020, during the Covid-19 outbreak, Ivan joined the initiative supporting hospitals in his home country, Belarus. He provided financial help for salvation the problem of lack of masks and protective clothing for health workers.