SPRINT CHECK-IN & EXCHANGE
Wednesday, April 19, 2023 | 10:00 am (EST)
This project is funded by:
Project Name: An Inclusive Payment Network for the Unbanked and Underbanked in Myanmar
Company/Organization: ThitsaWorks Pte. Ltd.
City, Country: Singapore
Adjust
SCOPE
SCHEDULE
BUDGET
Scope:
We will build a connector to enable microfinance institutions that lack core systems and/or API capabilities to connect to a payment switch. This will unlock economic growth in the sector that needs it most.
Schedule:
Schedule and project plans needed to be revised due to the pause. We plan to complete the project by 17 July 2023.
Budget:
Budget remains the same but we have requested to reallocate it to prioritize business analysis and software development resources
Forecast/Next Steps
Milestones
We're revising the project scope with the following three primary milestones to achieve in this project:
Mitigation Strategies
Risks/Challenges
Do you have any experience with connecting to an open payment network? What was your outstanding need during your experience?
Our project paused 100+ days due to unforeseen bank issues. This is why we must improve cross-border payments!
Summary:
Adjust
Adjust
Adjust
Adjust
Adjust
On Track
Adjust
Sprint Check-In & Exchange
Financial Services Cohort
Title of Research/Study: Snake Nation as a Tier 1 ILSP
Company/Organization: Snake Nation
City, Country: Cape Town, South Africa
BUSINESS PLAN SUMMARY
REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS
UPDATED TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
PHASE 2 – PULSE CHECK
Sprint Check-In & Exchange
Financial Services Cohort
Title of Research/Study: OTC ESCROW
Company/Organization: MUDA VENTURES LIMITED
City, Country: Kampala, UGANDA
BUSINESS PLAN SUMMARY
REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS
UPDATED TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
This phase of the project was not as successful as we anticipated in meeting its objectives of understanding how it can be implemented in our current cross-border solution, publishing our research findings and recommendations plus designing an escrow system based on ILP technology that can work in the OTC trading environment. However, there are areas for improvement such as technical upgrades and getting the right partners. The recommendations provided will help to improve the system and its implementation in the future.
PHASE 2 – PULSE CHECK
Sprint Check-In & Exchange
Financial Services Cohort
Title of Research/Study: COOL LION FI: an online lending platform connecting online lenders to entrepreneurs in Africa to secure equipment financing
Company/Organization: DIRECT IMPACT PARTNERS (COOL LION FI)
City, Country: Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire
BUSINESS PLAN SUMMARY
REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS
UPDATED TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
Explore securing a full-stack license (money transmitter/electronic money/microfinance license) for Francophone West Africa that can help blockchain startups find a crypto-friendly financial institution that can cater to their needs.
Explore launching a DeFi platform that mobilizes crypto loans for green asset financing for businesses.
Francophone West Africa has an harmonized financial regulatory environment and Togo, not Cote d’Ivoire is a suitable place for registration.
Central Bank offers no sandbox but is open to financial innovation.
Different licensing considerations outlined in our report with heavy capital requirements to meet.
Asset financing for green equipment is a big niche and a real opportunity: million dollar loans pipeline identified.
Our activities were focused on conducting an assessment of the regulatory environment and best way to launch and to define our tech architecture. We met them.
West Africa Economic and Monetary Union (8 countries) has 135 million people. 95% of businesses represent SMEs.
Become a non deposit taking credit institution that has secured a number of licenses. Some operations can be launched in the meantime while other operations will have to wait full regulatory approval.
PHASE 2 – PULSE CHECK
Universe conspiring, having partners such as ILP to support the ambition of financial inclusion everywhere
Sprint Check-In & Exchange
Financial Services Cohort
Title of Research/Study: Paystreme
Company/Organization: MYWALLETGURU,LLC
City, Country: Miami, Florida. USA.
BUSINESS PLAN SUMMARY
REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS
UPDATED TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
PHASE 2 – PULSE CHECK
Our moment of excitement!
With the announcement of Rafiki V1.0.0 alpha being ready, it has prompted us to move on the next stage of our research and development process!
Sprint Check-In & Exchange
Financial Services Cohort
Title of Research/Study:
Company/Organization: AMUCSS
City, Country: Mexico City, Mexico
BUSINESS PLAN SUMMARY
REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS
UPDATED TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
The project’s mission is to develop a technological solution for community banks in Mexico to talk to each other and receive remittances from the US. Our technical solution implements both Rafiki and Mojaloop, and has been very well received in AMUCSS’ community banks’ network.
The need in rural areas for a platform like the one we propose is more urgent than we first thought. The project generates profit from year 2 on and break even is reached by the end of year 2. Technically it is feasible to integrate a Mojaloop Hub with Rafiki, which can be compliant with Mexican regulation with some limitation.
We’ve incorporated the community-owned company in charge of the Clearinghouse. Managing staff is complete and fully committed to the project. We’ve established alliances with key partners: SPEI providers in Mexico, public institutions that support our social scope and project, tech partners for the clearinghouse functionality, like Mojaloop, Infitx, Thitsaworks. We’ve ran in March a successful demo of how our Rafiki-Mojaloop integration should work for our remittances platform. We’ve spent lots of time preparing the documentation required for filing the authorization with the Bank of Mexico. We’re ending this stage with the public presentation of PCH in a Forum to take place in Mexico City on April 25th.
Starting with AMUCSS’ network serving 198,000 members (mostly from poor, marginalized regions and many of them in indigenous communities), PCH will expand its market within several networks of savings coops, community banks and microfinance institutions serving 13.2 million people in Mexico.
Our model is based on volume: we’ll charge very low fees for P2P transfers between users of community banks. What’s more, our platform will offer the lowest market cost for a remittance in the whole US. That is possible because we intend to use the public rails available for remittances between US and Mexico (FedGlobal, which is cheap but slow), while allowing community banks to advance the remittance by using a secure and powerful Rafiki-Mojaloop messaging process.
We’ve thoroughly studied the ideal license for our project: “mobile-initiated payments clearinghouse”, which allows us to transfer money between financial institutions’ accounts, using the national RTGS or our own means of transfer.
The whole PCH team is involved in getting the authorization application ready for the Central Bank of Mexico at the end of April 2023. We’ve developed a close relationship with the Central Bank and are ready for the next stage.
We’re currently working on two minimal PoCs:
1) P2P model for intra-clearinghouse transfers, using a Mojaloop 3PPI model with a chatbot;
2) Remittances’ platform that uses, for messaging: Rafiki on the US side (for sending wallets) and Mojaloop on the Clearinghouse side (for receiving accounts); and for settling: FedGlobal connection between the Fed and the Bank of Mexico. Based on feedback from an initial presentation of this PoC in March, we believe this use of Rafiki can be a game changer in terms of ILP market visibility and adoption.
In order for our Rafiki-Mojaloop remittances’ platform to work, we’ll require: a final version of Rafiki, so we can start implementation with US wallets; enough capital to develop the full prototype; the authorization process running smoothly. That’s a lot of work in the coming months. These are all challenging obstacles to overcome.
PHASE 2 – PULSE CHECK
We’re almost ready (this month we still have to carry out the forum and submit the authorization request to the Central Bank of Mexico). We received a one month extension to finish this. For sure, we’re eagerly looking forward for phase 2: with ILF’s help, very soon we’ll have a Rafiki-Mojaloop remittances’ platform in production.
Sprint Check-In & Exchange
Financial Services Cohort
Title of Research/Study: Binusu Universal Wallet
Company/Organization: CryptoSavannah
City, Country: Kampala, Uganda
BUSINESS PLAN SUMMARY
REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS
UPDATED TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
A single digital wallet that rewards daily spending, enables access to cutting-edge financial services and manages digital identity.
We discovered that most supermarkets we approached were in a need for solution that accounts their loyalty programs to the national tax system.
Launch of a loyalty program by a supermarkets’ franchise Carrefour however, the financial inclusion element is absent.
We are currently building a dashboard for interaction for merchants, administrators and customers. Also, we are working on features for the different users.
Customers:2M Middle class Ugandans who shop at supermarkets with an average expenditure of $12 per purchase.
Merchants: Retail supermarket that have loyalty programs.
Revenue will be generated from wallet fees on transfer of points and an exchange fee for each transaction of points converted from crypto to fiat.
PHASE 2 – PULSE CHECK
Receiving a response from the regulator in response to our sandbox application. The regulator is subsequently reviewing the amended documents we submitted.
SPRINT CHECK-IN & EXCHANGE
Thursday, April 20, 2023 | 10:00 am (EST)
Sprint Check-In & Exchange
Financial Services Cohort
Title of Research/Study: Research on the microfinance and microlending
landscape in Kenya, from both a socioeconomic and technological perspective, to inform the future deployment of EZA - a gateway to financial opportunities in Web 3.
Company/Organization: BITKE
City, Country: NAIROBI, KENYA
BUSINESS PLAN SUMMARY
REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS
The EZA platform is designed to support SACCOs, MFIs, Chama’s to manage payment processing, credit decision algorithm and account management in a safe secure way. Additionally a SACCO loan facility enables SACCOs to access funds to on-lend to their members through EZA ILP ecosystem.
The research exercise resulted in the following findings:
Project Activities
Target Market
Business Model
What’s your sigh of relief?
PULSE CHECK
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
The team will develop and deploy the EZA platform which has the following components:
Blockers: Incl.:- Integration challenges with existing financial systems; Complexity of credit scoring algorithm; & Data security vulnerabilities. To mitigate these blockers, it will be important to have a skilled and experienced technical team & thorough testing & debugging.
Sprint Check-In & Exchange
Financial Services Cohort
Title of Research/Study: Impact-based funding
Company/Organization: Cheeri by Divao
City, Country: Lewes, USA
BUSINESS PLAN SUMMARY
REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS
UPDATED TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
PHASE 2 – PULSE CHECK
Sprint Check-In & Exchange
Financial Services Cohort
Title of Research/Study: ILP-based open-source digital wallet
Company/Organization: Kult
City, Country: Porto, Portugal
BUSINESS PLAN SUMMARY
REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS
UPDATED TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
- Making it easier and accessible for anyone to transfer money between each other through an open-source ILP-based digital wallet, aiming to reduce current UX barriers.
- Paying through credit/debit cards, and receiving via PIX (free and instant payment method from Brazilian government).
The business plan is feasible and the DW is technically viable. We managed to reduce some intermediary costs, however we still need to find a replacement for Uphold, since the communication with them is not very good. We believe Rafiki may be a good option.
- Web 3.0, Engage to earn, Tipping, Donations, Exclusive Galleries, Peer-to-Peer
- Technical document explaining how we will develop the DW and connect it with PIX, separated in 4 parts, presented in our mid-report.
- New feed (better UX according to user’s feedbacks).
- Business plan findings (final plan to be presented in our final report).
- Content curators
- Content creators
- Culture lovers
“adopting procedures and controls that allow the verification and validation of the identity and qualification of the account holder and, when applicable, of their representatives, as well as the authenticity of the information provided by them, including by comparing this information with that available in public or private databases.”
Needed partners and related costs already identified and presented here.
PHASE 2 – PULSE CHECK
A 100%! We have the technical guidelines, as well as estimated costs, time, and team needed to develop the DW, as found here. Soon, we will publish the final version of the business plan.
At first, we came across a huge problem: the implementation costs of the DW were impractical and would kill the solution. However, (phew!) we managed to negotiate with the partners and now it is completely feasible.
Sprint Check-In & Exchange
Financial Services Cohort
Title of Research/Study: Research & Planning phase of ILP-Based Financial Services
Company/Organization: BessPay Limited
City, Country: Kingston, Jamaica
BUSINESS PLAN SUMMARY
REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS
UPDATED TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
BessPay's Project Mission
BessPay will develop an ILP Network node wallet and plugin for creators in our target markets, starting with Jamaica. Our solution enables seamless streaming payments, issuance of payment pointers to creators, smooth integration with locally regulated financial institutions for cash-outs, and offers on-demand subscription payment options for content.�Key Research Findings:
a. Our Key Research findings reveal that Jamaican creators urgently need a transparent, efficient, and affordable solution that enables prompt and hassle-free payments for their content.
b. Over The Top (OTT) platforms are actively seeking a scalable digital solution that streamlines creator onboarding, content monetization, and seamless subscription revenue payouts, which will reduce their administrative processing costs and improve operational efficiency.�Evaluation of the Project’s activities over the past 6 months
1. Developed comprehensive plans to navigate BessPay's prototype, launch, and growth stages, addressing business, technology, legal, compliance, and risk factors.
2. Leveraged interviews and surveys to pinpoint the genuine needs and demands of Jamaican creators and OTT platforms.
3. Successfully engaged and informed key stakeholders across Finance, Telecom, Government, and Creator sectors about the vital need for enhanced financial support systems for Jamaica's creative community.�Outline of target market to benefit from service
1. ILP-Enabled Platforms targeting:
a. Caribbean region (2024-2027), Population: 13.2M (including Diaspora), TAM: 8.1M
b. Dominican Republic, El Salvador & Panama (2026-2028), Population: 21.6M, TAM: 9.5M
c. Ghana, Kenya & Tanzania (Africa) & Malaysia (Asia) (2027-2030), Population: 115.5M, TAM: 32M
2. Independent Creatorpreneurs (15-65 years) operating personal websites, TAM: ~24,000 Creatorpreneurs
3. Telecoms featuring OTT Value Added Services (VAS) :
a. TAM: 14 key Telecoms across 27 countries highlighted in #1, encompassing 125M subscribers�BessPay’s Business Model Approach
BessPay is committed to delivering feasible solutions, providing excellent client support and charging affordable fees to Creators and OTT Platforms. Our Business Model Approach is focused on maximizing their revenue & efficiency by utilizing the following strategies :
Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) under relevant legislation has regulatory responsibility and oversight in Jamaica for Deposit Taking, Banking, Money Remittance and Bill Payment Institutions. BOJ is currently developing legislation and regulations for Fintech companies and has established a sandbox for preliminary testing of innovations like digital wallets with a maximum timeframe of 24 months.
�Pending Fintech Legislation, BessPay’s approach in Jamaica is to :
PHASE 2 – PULSE CHECK
BessPay's technical requirements include integration with the Interledger Protocol, which enables the following features:
Pricing Strategy | Transparent, simple to calculate and competitively low-end �priced fees for subscription, commission, and usage |
Distribution Channels �& Key Partnership Facilitation | We leverage B2B2C distribution channels through a plugin for creators and OTT platforms, and we collaborate with leading regional telecoms with OTTs, as well as regulated financial entities such as banks and local payment agents/wallets as key partners. |
Growth Potential | Our growth potential is strong with projected high annualized growth and our plans to expand into 27 developing countries over 7 years in 3 phases: Caribbean (2024-2027), Central America (2026-2028), and Africa & Asia (2028-2030) |
Sprint Check-In & Exchange
Financial Services Cohort
Title of Research/Study: Technical feasibility and discovering value
Company/Organization: AgnostiPay (Spendies B.V.)
City, Country: Amersfoort, The Netherlands
BUSINESS PLAN SUMMARY
REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS
UPDATED TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
Key point summary of project’s mission�Creating currency agnostic payments
through client-side open-source technology for the ILP stack.
Key research findings
Proven technical feasibility.
Problem-Solution fit for our SDK (we have a lead list of 50 companies, with C-level connections in The Netherlands, and over 10 European / International, with interest in integrating our open-source code into their companies).
Generated a road map for delivering components of our SDK in the coming 9 to 12 months.
Evaluation of project’s activities over the past 5-months�Built a successful tech-demo for a webshop and mobile app to prove technical feasibility.
Positive community and stakeholder feedback on: Vision Paper (published), Technical White paper (written, will be published in an git-book documentation).
Generated successful Business Development on a list of (local/international) companies to distribute or use our SDK.
Building a local consortium with builders, distributors, users and stakeholders (e.g. banks) to enhance adoption, distribution and product feedback-loops.
Our in-depth research of P2P challenges gave us insights in opportunities of centralised Federated services for potential pivotal acceleration of adoption.
Outline of target market to benefit from service and
We identified 3 initial target markets: Mobile Fintech apps, SaaS/Webshops, Expense management software.
Possible proposed business model approach
(Linux-RedHat model) Foundation and an ‘implementation, consultancy, certificates and custom licenced products’ Limited (Besloten Venootschap, B.V.).
Our open-source technology is build from a ‘legal first’ principle, and in its core doesn't require any ‘money transfer licence’ in its peer2peer form (under European Law)
To potentially accelerate the adoption of AgnostiPay and ILP technology we researched and identified 3 routes:
We have added added an Open Payments ‘Provider’ to our technical requirements, this enables us to speak ILP directly.
To catalyze the adoption of both AgnostiPay and ILP we have identified that a licensed PSP (see options in section above) can play a pivotal role. This PSP will also fully incorporate the Open Payments definition/API - including Payment pointers for KYC’ed end-users - combined with our open-source Providers that connect with all European banks, will enabled users to pay Euro/fiat via the interledger Protocol. Our Providers will be installed on many webshops through our consortium of webshops and SaaS partners, and therefore enables ILP as an online payment option.
In addition, we discovered that AgnostiPay, Dassie (and thus ILP) combined will be a major breakthrough for the P2P payments proposition - to help global inclusivity forward. (That won’t need an additional license to operate)
PHASE 2 – PULSE CHECK
We outlined our MVP product, roadmap and budget to build and deliver the beta SDK and are ready for the next phase. (And are hoping we can receive the right funds on time so we can guarantee continuity of the OSS project to our stakeholders)
- Phew, our idea actually makes sense to old school fintech incumbents! :D