SCF #8
Benkiko Finance
by

Facilitate instant online payments anywhere in the world at near zero fees

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Products & Services

Our Vision
To power and support the New Digital Economy through digital first payments and ubiquity of money.

Our Mission
To enable everyone  to earn, invest and spend online with ease, convenience and at low fees.

Our Positioning statement
Benkiko powers your digital lifestyle by enabling you to do more with your money online, instantly and at low fees.

Our Value Proposition
A Digital Bank for the Digital Economy.

Products and Services
1. Benkiko App - A feature packed Stellar Interface used to send money, make payments, and trade digital assets.
2. Benkiko SDKs and APIs - To power an ecosystem of products and services that enable people to earn, invest and spend online, instantly and at low fees.

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Progress so far
Goals

We're looking to power 500,000 online transaction by Dec 1st 2021.


At an average fee of $1, Benkiko is looking to raise $250,000 to achieve 500k transaction by end of Nov giving us estimated returns of $500k.
The amount will be used to tackle some of the challenges identified on our SWOT Analysis which may include partnership, equipment purchases, and services.

To get there, we request a budget of  
$
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  to:

1. $50, 000 for Content creation partnerships - Partnership with influencers and content creators in the 5 markets to create awaress about Benkiko.


2. $20, 000 for Product Facilitations - To acquire the necessary resources to keep the team going. This budget is also used in our Stellar Reserve Sponsoring account, AWS hosting fees, and much more.


3. $50, 000 for Team wages - To secure our team's peace of mind by guaranteeing them a stable stipend, as well as hire new members in the 5 markets.


4. $30, 000 for Marketing and branding materials - To enable us print marketing materials such as bronchures, t-shirts, hoodies and caps for local meetups.


5. $70, 000 for Liquidity provisions - We will use part of the funds to provide liquidity for other ecosystems such as $BNB, $ETH and $BTC. Used to power a Benkiko external bridge enabling people to easily move money between Benkiko ecosystem and other crypto ecosystems.


6. $30, 000 reserved to facilitate new ideas, and startups within the ecosystem as a way of showcasing what can be achieved using Benkiko.

Additional information

Problem and Solution


With the world increasingly becoming digital, money can now move as fast as information across time zones. Digital commerce is also on the rise at double digital since the onset of COVID19, with governments pushing people to stay at home and to opt for contactless shopping and payments. Even more, how we works, earn, invest and spend is changing both as a results of digitalisation and now Digital assets.

Here are our user's main pain points and how we intend to solve them;
1. Lack of a Digital Economy Focused Bank.
2. High transaction fees for cross-border payments.
3. Inability to Do More than just payments with existing fintech apps.

As an easy to use interface of Stellar, here is how Benkiko Finance is solving the above pain points;
1. A digital bank for the digital economy enabling people to send and receive money and payments instantly across the globe at near zero fees.
2. We have created a USD Stablecoin which allows Benkiko to support all the currencies in the world easily, making it fast to send cash to anyone who has the app at low fees.
3. Stellar enables our users to create digital value thus we can enable people to tokenise businesses, community currencies, securities, rights of ownership as well as the Stellar DEX to own and exchange value across the world.  

Supporting evidence of the digital economy;
1. Huawei and Oxford Economics (2017) – estimate the global digital economy in 2016 was worth $11.5 trillion or 15.5% of global GDP.
2. McKinsey forecasts that the growth of the digital economy in India may create 65 million new jobs by 2025.
3. Google and the IFC (2020), estimate that Africa's "internet economy" (iGDP) was $100 billion in 2019, or 3.9% of GDP.
4. Kenya is the highest performer with iGDP of 7.7% of total GDP, estimated to contribute $345 million in 2023.
5. LocalBitcoins.com in Kenya reported trading volumes in excess of $1.8 million as of December 2020.
6. China is the world’s largest social commerce market, with $351.65 billion in sales in 2021. Social commerce sales in the US will be about a tenth of that amount, at $36.62 billion, but that’s still up by 35.8% from 2020.


Target Market


Benkiko is working to build a stable and reliable Digital Bank to power The Digital Economy.
We already have Youtubers and content creators using Benkiko to monetize their work by receiving tips from their audience. This is done by putting a Tipping Card on their videos which can be scanned to tip. Another special use case is a Payment Request link being posted alongside the video description, in a blog or alongside a social media post for products and the audience being able to tip or pay for goods and services.

Another use case has been seen in In-store purchases where we provide shops, public transport buses with a poster carrying their specific Payment QR code and customers can scan to pay on the go hassle-free.

We're working to avail APIs and SDKs for startups and developers to integrate Pay with Benkiko easily. Structured to easily enable even beginner developers to build solutions for their communities. As time goes by, we'll also allow each startups, platform or product Powered by Benkiko to issue their own digital asset which is tradable through Benkiko exchange, powered by Stellar DEX.

Revenue Model


Benkiko primary revenue model is transactions fees when sending money between users, paying and tipping, and exchanging between assets.

Revenue avenues:
1. Transaction fee - A fee charged when paying and sending money.
2. Services fee - Custom services such as Escrow might require an extra charge.
3. Exchange fee - When swapping between tokens on the exchange. We'll discount the fees when our governance token $BNK comes live.

With the above revenue avenues, we forecast to reach profitability in 10months. With an estimated $500k monthly revenues in revenues by 2023


Market Research


As seen from the description of the project, we can not only power the digital economy but also the tradition economy by making money borderless. Enabling people to participate directly in other economies as well by investing in businesses and startups overseas.


Here are the numbers we're committed to achieve from the greater scope:
1. We're looking to capture a 15% solid piece of the African Digital Economy by 2024, through Benkiko as a Bank and The Benkiko Ecosystem. Quoted at $180B by Google and International Finance Corporation.
2. To power Social Commerce across the globe through a reliable, affordable and fast Digital Payment rail. Valued at USD 474.8 billion in 2020. It is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.4% from 2021 to 2028.
3. To empower The Creator Economy through monetisation tools and micropayments for Tips. Estimated to be worth $100B+.
4. Promote Financial Inclusion, and investment avenues anyone with a mobile phone.



Threats & Opportunities


Being a new industry, most of the countries supported in Benkiko do not have laws for what we are doing. But we find a leeway in P2P trading as its a situation of a willing buyer-willing seller.

Competition


What we're doing is revolutionary. Not that it hasn't been done but that we're doing it Better - Making crypto easier to use by creating a new universe around it, where people can exchange value instantly across the globe.


Our top competitors:
1. Binance - The giant exchange powers global largest crypto trade volumes. It also have The Binance Smart Chain and Binance Chain to its name.
2. Paypal - A global online payments platform.
3. Mpesa - A leading mobile money service in Kenya.



Marketing & Sales


Our primary marketing avenue is Social Media and Partnerships with Content creators. Through good storytelling, quality content and a smooth onboarding and UX we'll reach Market-Fit/Customer-Message Fit faster giving us exponential growth to the factor of x10 every quarter.

1. Content creation partnerships - Engaging influencers to create engaging content for awareness about Benkiko within their audience. This is a win-win as Benkiko also powers creatives to monetize their content easily.
2. Developers and Startups community - Be part of Developer and Startup communities to show them what Benkiko helps them achieve. Provide APIs and SDKs support through easy to use, consume and well documentation.
3. Merchants and Vendors - Approach marketplaces, both online and offline, to accept payments with Benkiko.


Resources & Relationships


As a team we have the advantage of being in Content creators and Developers circles, which makes it strategic for us to bring on board influencers and an upper hand approaching developers with our solution.That aside, we are also well organised with a lot of the skills inhouse meaning we'll be able to offer good support to the communities easily.


Pitch deck
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Deliverables
First Deliverable

Benkiko is changing the way people use and relate with money. Not only can you pay but you can also co-own, exchange and trade value easily online. It's not an easy feat seeing its built on new technologies and new terminologies as well. Rewriting everything people know about money and currencies. To achieve this, we'll need to pump out a lot of marketing resources, partnerships and use cases to showcase what we think can be achieved.

It's to this end that the budget above feels appropriate to engage the right people, produce the right quality of materials and use cases for the layman.

Links:

Main website - Chronospay.io
App on iOS
App on PlayStore


Twitter

• Discord: Chronospay#9640


• matias@chronosnetwork.io
https://vimeo.com/590543751

Team

John Frank Githiaka Ngemi
I'm co-founder and CEO at Benkiko Finance, previously founder Swiftity - an e-sourcing and tendering platform.