# Overview Building a global financial application today means integrating with a different vendor for every rail you want to support. One provider for ACH, another one for SWIFT, another for Ethereum, another for FX. Each comes with its own API, its own compliance requirements, and its own integration overhead. Going global, in practice, means rebuilding your payment stack for every region you enter. Anchors solve this at the protocol level. An Anchor is a standardized interface that connects any external payment rail, blockchain network or traditional, to Keeta. Once connected, that rail's native assets become freely tradeable with any other asset on the network. Moving USD via ACH, ETH via an Ethereum bridge, any other currency over SWIFT — it's all possible with Anchors. The Anchor system takes care of [service discovery](/anchors/overview/anchor-resolver.md), and allows your [application](/anchors/overview/anchor-client.md) to easily compare [services](/anchors/overview/anchor-server.md) based on their speed and coverage. It also handles the onboarding to these services. This includes sharing verifiable KYC[^1] credentials, presenting Terms of Service agreements, or even establishing customer support channels. For providers, such as banks and bridges, it offers a way to integrate once and reach any compatible application across the Keeta ecosystem. {% hint style="info" %} Keeta operates a set of flagship Anchors that provide foundational services, including connectivity to [Base Chain](https://www.base.org/) and various fiat payment rails, with liquidity for these tokenized assets. But any participant can create and host an Anchor for any rail. Multiple providers can anchor the same rail simultaneously — your application and its users route between them based on fees, rules, and performance. There is no single point of failure, and no vendor lock-in. {% endhint %} Anchors come in various categories, each representing both a service your application may consume, and a function a provider may offer: * [**Asset Movement Anchors**](/anchors/anchor-types/asset-movement.md) bring value onto and off of Keeta. These are the on/off ramps: commercial banks, stablecoin ramps, and blockchain bridges. When your users need to deposit funds from their bank account or withdraw to a crypto wallet, an Asset Movement Anchor is what makes that happen. * [**FX Anchors**](/anchors/anchor-types/fx-foreign-exchange.md) handle conversion between asset classes. Backed by market makers, DeFi liquidity pools, and traditional FX desks, they let your app offer currency conversion across any pair, without exposing your users to counterparty risk. * **KYC Anchors** issue verifiable identity certificates to users on Keeta. Certificate Authorities can be governments, KYC providers, banks, or cell phone carriers — any entity qualified to attest to a user's identity or credentials. Once issued, certificates travel with the user as a portable digital passport, letting any Anchor that requires compliance verify identity instantly without repeating onboarding. * Various other supporting Anchors that offer the building blocks of a modern banking experience: **Username Anchors** abstract away from machine-oriented `keeta_` addresses, and offer a more human friendly addressing system. **Notification Anchors** faciliate push notifications, and remove the need for open websockets to be notified about network events. **Storage Anchors** provide a private data store, where applications may put user contacts, icons, or any other arbitrary files required by their operation. *** Together, Anchors turn Keeta into the access layer for a truly global financial system. They make fragmented rails feel like one network for developers and users, and empower a new generation of banking applications built for an instant, borderless, programmable world. [^1]: Including Know Your Business, and even Know Your Agent flows. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.keeta.com/anchors/overview.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.