Mercantile Bank International Corp. Announces Reverse Merger Transaction with Crucial Innovations Corp.

San Juan, Puerto Rico--(Newsfile Corp. - January 7, 2021) - Mercantile Bank International Corp. ("MBI") (www.mercantile-bank.com), an innovative payments and digital asset custody bank based in Puerto Rico, today announced that on December 31, 2020, it executed a definitive agreement, subject to required approvals, for a reverse merger with Crucial Innovations Corp. (OTC Pink: CINV), a shell company.

MBI, one of the first banks in the U.S. licensed to custody digital assets, also offers private and merchant banking solutions through traditional trust and custody accounts, and combines these services with cutting-edge global money transfer and payments capabilities to provide simple, fast and secure money transfers to other financial institution accounts in the U.S. and 135 additional countries in their native currencies.

As part of the agreement, MBI's current executive management team, which brings more than 100 years of combined banking and financial services experience to the table, will remain in place. This includes MBI's founder and CEO, J. Robert "Bo" Collins, Jr., the former president of the New York Mercantile Exchange ("NYMEX"), who will remain as MBI's CEO.

"The successful completion of this agreement represents a major milestone for MBI, positioning the bank for growth at just the right time to benefit from the tremendous expansion in the digital asset trading and custody market space," said Collins.

"We are perfectly positioned to provide banking access to the digital asset markets and this 'going-public' transaction will enable us to grow MBI's banking platform by bringing in new clients and adding new products to serve our existing clients. It will really add momentum to our expanding global payments capabilities, help us rollout some creative new investment products and eventually help us utilize our cutting-edge payments and custody technologies in innovative ways, such as offering corresponding banking services to a new set of clients," added Collins.

Additional information regarding the transaction is set forth in Crucial Innovation's Current Report on Form 8-K dated January 4, 2021, which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The transaction is subject to the final approval of MBI's primary banking regulator, the Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions of Puerto Rico.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements." Although the forward-looking statements in this release reflect the good faith judgment of management, forward-looking statements are inherently subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to be materially different from those discussed in these forward-looking statements. Readers are urged to carefully review and consider the various disclosures made by CINV and MBI in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the risk factors that attempt to advise interested parties of the risks that may affect our business, financial condition, results of operation and cash flows. If one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or if the underlying assumptions prove incorrect, our actual results may vary materially from those expected or projected. Readers are urged not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect any event or circumstance that may arise after the date of this release.

Contact

Mercantile Bank International Corp.
www.mercantile-bank.com
Rene Carson, Chief Legal Officer
(713) 970-1085
[email protected]

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/71532