SCF #11
CashAbroad

Cashabroad helps businesses do abroad payments as easy as with locals, with low-cost and instant transactions.

Awarded
Budget request:
$
10,000
*
WebsiteCode

Project Stage

Development

Category

Cross-Border Payments
Micro & B2B Payments

Based in

Mexico

Team size

6

Active since

22 April 2022
Products & Services

🎁 Product

CashAbroad is a web platform where businesses in Latam can send and receive cross-border payments from international merchants and vendors with low-cost, instant transactions and a group of smart features that make your paying journey a pleasure.


🤔 Problem

Paying vendors is disorganized and inefficient because approvals, invoices, and payments are often on different channels, like WhatsApp, emails, and paper bills. Moreover, Mexican companies lose up to +9-12% in revenue in cross-border payments and spend up to 30 hours or more a month on payment transactions, a time that would be best spent on strategy.


These businesses also struggle with liquidity due to long settlement times, which push them to use credits or loans (more costs!) to keep their businesses running. On top of that, they spend effort and time redoing their invoices due to constant exchange rate fluctuations.


We are creating features to help them do their job smoothly and pain-free.

  • Pay/receive directly with your local currency to merchants abroad in dollars or their local currency.
  • Automatic Payments | Schedule a one-time/recurrent date to pay one or multiple recipients; great for utility bills or salaries.
  • Mass Payments | Pay simultaneously to multiple users. Great for paying salaries!
  • Invoices | Sent invoices with smart adjustments to request payments (USD/local currency).
  • Accounting Imports | Download your transaction history to use it on your favorite accounting software.
  • Approvals | Invite collaborators and request approvals, for example, from accounting or you!


With Cashabroad, Businesses of small and Medium sizes like developing, design, marketing agencies, people that give courses online, consultants, real estate, and others will be able to open their frontiers.


⚒️ How it Works

In partnership with Wyre, we create a custodial wallet for each user and through Stellar Blockchain have compliant FIAT to crypto On/Off ramps. Plus KYB and AML compliance.

We use Spreedly to be PCI compliant.

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Previous Project(s)
SCF #10
Award recipient
CashAbroad
Do abroad business as easy as with locals
Learn more
Progress so far

🟩 Since the last application, we:

  • Mapped the user journey
  • Interviewed users and defined our ideal User Persona and functionalities
  • During our interviews with users, we concluded that the NLP functionality was a nice-to-have feature but not the core need of our users, so we decided not to included it.
  • The development stage of our MVP (US-MX Corridor)
  • Designed the UX and UI of the Web App
  • Developed the Frontend of the Web App
  • Developed the backend of the Web App in Firebase
  • Integrated into the testing environment the solution in a partnership with Wyre to enable the On/Off ramps.
  • Designed and implemented the Architecture of the solution within Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
  • Launched a new website version
  • Enabled a Spanish version on the website
  • Created the Social Media networks
  • Built a team
  • Evaluated and select the PCI compliance vendor to store bank card information
  • Evaluated with attorneys in Mexico and the USA the Legal compliance and regulations required to start the business in Mexico vs the USA and selected the best way to launch the product.
  • Worked on our deck to get ready to raise funding soon
  • We were selected to participate in the Blockchain Academy Chile incubator (4 months), where we broader our user interviews, defined our target market, and continued our software development.

 

 🧑🏻‍💻Right now we are preparing for our beta testing and are working on:

  • Incorporating the company to deploy the solution in production
  • Generating the Waiting list
  • Testing and Finishing the development with Wyre
Goals
  1. Finish the software integration with Wyre for the On/Off ramp for USA-MX corridor payments in 1-month
  2. Start the BETA testing in Nov-Dec 2022
  3. Launch CashAbroad cross-border payment solution to the general public in Dec 2022
  4. Acquire the first 100 recurrent businesses in the US-MX corridor in the next six months.
To get there, we request a budget of  
$
10,000
*
  to:
  • Hire a freelancer and finish the mockup designs of the recurrent user case and dashboard
  • Integrate the PCI Compliant service to store bank card information
  • Incorporate the company in the U.S. to obtain the production API keys with Wyre
  • Deploy to production CashAbroad beta testing for the corridor US-MX
  • Generate a Waiting List
  • Get feedback from beta testing users, improve the experience and prepare to scale to the general public
  • Run a marketing campaign to acquire the first business users
  • Open the service to the general public
Additional information

💸 | Revenue Model & Funding

We calculate an average income per cross-border transaction of 3%, including fees per transaction and an exchange rate commission.


Average cross-border remittance fees are 6.2%, depending on the country, with fees commission ranging from 0% to 15% plus exchange rate commissions. It is common to find competitors with a 0% transfer fee but with an exchange rate significantly decreasing the money sent. So we consider 3% a competitive fee.


We are currently applying and pitching to investors to raise funding. And as part of our participation in the Blockchain Academy Chile Incubator.


🔎 | Market & Industry Research

The global B2B payments market size was valued at $942.6 billion in 2021 and will reach $1.91 trillion in 2028 at a CAGR of 10.6%. In Latam, we estimate a volume of cross-border payments of $168 Billion based on the remittance volume in the region.


In Latam, even if cash still is the primary payment method, larger central banks are launching initiatives to develop an open banking ecosystem that support the shift toward digital payments. The global pandemic boosted this change in countries such as Brazil and Mexico.


Additionally, the shift to digital payment methods was boosted by the favorable demographics of Latam since it has one of the youngest populations in the world.


In Mexico, the management of payments plays a substantial opportunity for improvement since, according to a study, 87% of the businesses reported late payments by B2B customers, which is, in part, caused by the manual reconciliation of invoices and payments that 40% of companies do, according to INEGI.


Percentage of B2B with late payments

The lack of fast and cost-efficient cross-board payment methods for businesses in Latam, combined with the favorable demographics and smartphone penetration, presents an ideal environment for Cashabroad to bring his solution to Latam businesses.



⚔️ | Competition

  • Legacy Solutions
  • Banks
  • MTOs: Western Union, Money Gram, and Ria (mostly brick-and-mortar)
  • Digital Solutions (not crypto focused)
  • Stripe, Paypal, Wise, Thunes, Rapyd, Flexio
  • Crypto solutions
  • Request (DAO based)
  • Binance
  • Valora
  • Other Wallets


✅ We focus mainly on the Latam region.

✅ We offer a friendly digital solution powered by crypto benefits to a not crypto-savvy audience.

✅ Our focus is B2B needs


👥 | Resources & Relationships


  • Colledge (formerly Blockchain Academy Chile)

A growing education, incubator, and community platform. Colledge experts on blockchain have nurtured us during the 4-month program of its incubator with expertise in different fields like UX, Mkt, Finance, engineering, and others. They also offer an extent network of investors.


  • Lourdes Hidalgo | Advisor & Business Asociations

Currently President of the National Chamber of Commerce in Coatzacoalcos (CANACO), a member of AMEXME (Business Woman Association), and with connections with other business entities like CANACINTRA.


  • Ivan Álvarez Frías | Tech Advisor & Talent Pool

Ivan has the biggest iOs developer community in Mexico (he has nurtured it over the years) and supports us with the best talent and engineering expertise.


📮 | Marketing & Sales

Early adopter, we are currently building a Waiting List through contacts. After Customer Acquisition, we will focus mainly on the following:

  • Business Associations: We plan to target and partner with the National Chamber of Commerce (CANACO), the EXATEC Community of business, the International Business Network (BNI), and the Business Woman Association (AMEXME). And groups of Facebook by business type.
  • A mix of offline/online events with a viral discount fee that prompts people to invite others.
  • Video content for businesses with interviews and tips on expanding and growing their cross-border audiences.
  • Affiliate compensation plans
Pitch deck
No items found.
Deliverables
First Deliverable
CashAbroad

Cashabroad is a startup with an international team, the two founders live in Mexico, but we work with people from other countries. The company is currently in the process of incorporating in the U.S. We are creating a platform for SMBs in Latam that want to send/receive cross-border payments at a low cost, instantly, and smartly. We want to improve the Latam region and its opportunities. We believe that if language is not a barrier for Latinos, paying between our countries shouldn't be either.

Team

Ruth Gomez Hidalgo (ruths.hidalgo-CashAbroad#7130)

CEO & Marketing

Has broad experience in digital marketing, paid media, social media, video content, branding, budget, product design, UX, CX, omnichannel integrations, leading teams, and working on tech companies.


Consistently delivering results on customer acquisitions, ROA, LTV, CAC, Sales, budget optimization, campaign management & optimization, customer engagement, launching national campaigns, customer service, cross-sell and up-sell strategy, and Crisis Management.


Worked with P2P, Massive Market (more than 10M customers), B2B, and Enterprise.


Tech-savvy and blockchain technology enthusiast. Studied at the "Tec de Monterrey" and in Miami at the "MBP school."


Has won competitions at Google, Microsoft, Bosch, and Aldea Digital.


Loves her three cats, video games, watching Netflix, Star Wars, Marvel, zombie films, Sustainability and Climate change initiatives.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruthhidalgo/


Braulio Ramirez Montiel (Braulio- (CashAbroad )#7103)

Lead Developer & Product

Physics engineer Graduated with honors from Tec de Monterrey.


He did an internship abroad at Stuttgart, where he researched and experimented with ice particles.


At PwC, he worked for the finance department for transfer pricing.


With nine years of experience leading, developing, and deploying digital products (often the most challenging at these companies) at Telmex and later at Walmart.


As Growth Manager at Walmart, he led the India and US (Sunnyvale) teams, and his projects increased by 25% digital sales.


He has also won several competitions and was on the five-person innovation team for Hector Slim (CEO of the biggest Telecomm in Mexico.)


He loves to read about economics and news, adores cats, Shingeki no Kyojin, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and speaks German.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/braulioramirezmontiel/


👥 |The Squad

It is international and is composed of the following:

Two full-time founders, 2 Freelancers, 2 Attorneys as consultants (one in Mexico and 1 in USA 1), and 1 Mid-time recent graduate with a scholarship from the Mexican government.


  • Angie Martínez | Web Designer & Social Media 🇲🇽
  • Gian | Front-End 🇵🇪
  • María | UX 🇵🇰
  • Nathan | Legal 🇺🇸
  • Teresa Carballo | Legal 🇲🇽