SCF #10
Sentit
by

A multi-currency non-custodial Blockchain Wallet with the main Focus on Cross-Border payment.

Awarded
Budget request:
$
*
WebsiteCode

Project Stage

Growth

Category

Cross-Border Payments
Defi & Wallets

Based in

Nigeria

Team size

Active since

2020
Products & Services

Cross Border Payments

Sentit is built for both Cross-Border and Local payments, this is shown in our various types of payment processes targeted at simplifying Blockchain for payments, on Sentit Users can send payment to an Email address(New and Existing Users), Public key and federated address. Users can send the same asset or Cross-Asset to any of the available payment methods. Below is a short explanation of these features;


1. Email Payments: One of the ways we simplified cross-border payments is through email payments. Sending Money across Borders should be as effortless as sending an email, Sentit allows users to be able to send payment just by knowing the recipient's email, No public key is required. Just ask for the recipient's email and Users can send funds/crypto assets to their email directly regardless if the Recipient is Registered on Sentit or Not. This takes away the issues of users sending payments to the wrong persons and it is way more user friendly.

2. Public and Federated Address Payment: For Experience Users, Sentit is also for You, On Sentit Users can send Federated and Public key payments too, and all the above mention features are also available for sending Payments. This makes Sentit not just a wallet for Newbie with No or little Blockchain experience but a dynamic wallet that can bend to fit everyone’s purpose regardless of their level of experience with Blockchain technology.



3. Currency Swaps: For Both experienced and New Users, Sentit provides functionality to be able to swap between currencies, crypto assets, tokens and NFTs at an extremely low fee and fast settlement time. With the recent devaluation of currencies and inflation in most countries, swapping between currencies has been a way to hedge against inflation and currencies devaluation and Sentit is the right tool for this.


Bill Payments

Online Bill payments have become an essential part of everyone’s lifestyle these days, MTN Nigeria's 2020 financial report shows how bill payment is becoming extremely important not just for Nigeria alone but all over Africa and the World by extension, The group made N332.4 billion in data related Revenue alone with a 51.2% growth in 2020. Sentit Allows any User to pay all sorts of Bill like Airtime, Data, Tv, Internet, Religion, Educational subscriptions, Cable Tv subscriptions, and many more using any of their Trusted Token/Crypto Asset. This provides users with a wallet that supports their everyday bill payments alongside their crypto-asset, giving Users the flexibility to pay their everyday bills with just a few clicks. We believe bill payments will play an important role in blockchain adoption for cross-border payments and Sentit is at the forefront of this.



On and Off-Ramp of NGN (upcoming)

On and Offramp of fiat is a must-have functionality of any Cross-Border payment platform and with Stellar Standardized Sep006 and Sep024, we provide users with the functionality to directly make deposits and withdrawals of Fiat(Real-world fiat), Tokens and Assets (from other Chain like Ethereum, Bitcoin etc) directly from the Sentit Wallet. We currently support BTC, ETH and other ERC20 for sep 006 withdrawal and deposit.


For fiat deposits and withdrawals, Sentit currently support sep24, any assets(fiat) that conform with this Sep Standard, Users would be available to deposit and withdraw them to their banks directly from Sentit, we will continue to partner and integrate with more anchors on the stellar network to provide users with that seamless experience that Matters.




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Previous Project(s)
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Progress so far
Goals

In the next 6 months, we plan to achieve the following:

  • Grow our existing Community:
  • In the next 6 months, we plan to introduce Blockchain Payments to more users both experience Blockchain users and New users who are not familiar with the Blockchain space yet. Sentit plans to grow our User base to at least 100k in the next 6 months.
  • Integrate more anchors via Sep-06 and Sep -24
  • Sentit already provide support for a few Fiat asset via sep6 and sep24, in the coming months we plan to integrate more Fiat and provide on and off-ramp via sep6 and sep24, this will help sentit reach a wider audience and expand our reach within our target market.
  • Research and Implement Additional Feature
  • Improve User Experience
To get there, we request a budget of  
$
*
  to:
  • 1 Frontend Developer
  • 1 Mobile Dev
  • 1  Marketing and Content manager
  • 1 Backend Dev
  • 1 UI/UX
  • 1 Project manager
Additional information

Complexity they say is the enemy of Technology and Blockchain comes with a whole lot of complexity. It is no doubt that one of the challenges to blockchain mass -adoption is caused by the Complex Nature of Blockchain. To encourage user adoption of blockchain for Cross-Border payments, Blockchain needs to be simple and Flexible, Ease of Use is important, This is Why we developed Sentit, Sentit is Simplifying Blockchain for Cross-Border payments. Sentit is a Non-custodial Multi-currency Blockchain wallet that allows users to benefit from the endless potential of blockchain technology. Through Sentit,  We abstract the Complex nature of Blockchain without compromising any of the benefits a non-custodian Blockchain wallet Provides. Benefits like, Like User Control of their Fund, Security, Low Transaction fees, Fast Settlement Time and many more.

CUSTOMER PROBLEMS

Blockchain for Cross Border payment is no doubt effective but when compared to other technologies, the adoption has been slow, the reason is not far fetched, Blockchain comes with a whole lot of Complexity. Today, Users with little or no knowledge about some Blockchain concepts like Public-Private Key Cryptography, Encryption, Validators, Nonce, etc might find it difficult to use the Existing Blockchain Cross-Border Payment Solutions.

There have been various wallets already implementing Blockchain for cross Border payment but most of these wallets still require Users to be Technical or at the minimum user have to understand public-private key concepts to use these wallets. For True adoption of Blockchain, Blockchain needs to be simplified without compromising Blockchain Security, User Control of Fund, Speed and other blockchain benefits.

Some of the major issue with using Blockchain For Cross-Border payments includes;

  • The complex process for sending cross Border payments with Blockchain
  • High Transaction Fees for Sending Blockchain Payments
  • Long Settlement Time for Blockchain Payments

These are just a few of the problems associated with using Blockchain for Cross-border payments.

HOW CAN SENTIT HELP

Sentit was born out of the need for a simple, easy to use, wallet that can relate to the user in the way they already know, providing them with Low transaction Fees and fast settlement Time. Adopting Blockchain requires simplicity and this is what Sentit is bringing on board, Users on Sentit enjoy a simple wallet couple with blockchain benefits without Compromising Blockchain Security. Sentit Provides users with a single entry point to the blockchain world without the complex processes that are usually involved when using Blockchain Applications.

Sentit provides users with the basic need-to-know information to start using Blockchain and the flexibility to know and explore more if they want to. We Understand that sending money across borders should be easier than sending email, no stress, no complex technology, no huge fees, no long waiting hours, this is why Sentit was created. Some of our Features include;

FEATURES ON SENTIT

  • Email Payments
  • Cross-Asset Payment
  • Bills Payments(Crypto or Fiat)
  • Currencies Swap(Crypto and Fiat)
  • Withdrawals & Deposit of Fiat for Currencies that are listed on Stellar.
  • Deposit and Withdrawals of External Currencies Like Erc20 etc
  • Public Key and Federated Address Payments
  • Low Transaction Fee
  • Pay Transactions Fee With Any Currency / Crypto Asset

WHY STELLAR

  • Multi-Currency Transaction: Through Existing anchors on the stellar network, Sentit accelerates its go-to-market time by tapping into these various anchors and providing users with multiple currencies for their use.
  • Interoperable with the existing Financial System: providing users with on and off-ramp functionality is one of the key functionality why Sentit choose stellar for its cross-border payments. Allowing users to withdraw from blockchain to Traditional Banking accounts is a huge benefit that aligns with Sentit's mission.
  • High Speed and Scalability: 3-5sec settlement time, thousands of transactions per sec makes stellar a good choice for our use case.
  • Low Transaction Fee: Considering our target market, this is important and Stellar fee of 100stroops at this moment is incredible.


BENEFIT OF SENTIT TO STELLAR

By targeting Sub-Saharan Africa We bring a lot of new exposure to Stellar Blockchain and the community, this we believe will bring in new users not only to Sentit but also to the Stellar network at large and this will further aid in creating a truly Inclusive financial ecosystem that truly aligns with Stellar mission to Creating Equitable access to Global Financial System.

Through Sentit, we bring real-world use-case to the stellar blockchain, allowing everyday users to use the stellar blockchain for their everyday activities like paying for airtime, Paying other subscriptions, Sending money to friends and families etc, all happening right on stellar via Sentit, again this align with Stellar Mission of Creating Equitable access to Global Financial System. Our marketing plans will further create awareness for not just Sentit as a wallet but also Stellar the Blockchain that powers Sentit and this will open up new inflows of developers to further explore and build on Stellar Blockchain.

HOW SENTIT USES STELLAR

Sentit is built on Stellar blockchain and we leverage some of Stellar features in our solution to provide a seamless cross-Border Payments experience, some of these features include;

Stellar Payments operations: At the core of our solution is payment, allowing one user to send payment to another user, this might be via email, federated or public key payments, All payments on Sentit are sent via stellar payments operations, this allows us to process payment faster and at a very low cost on the Blockchain.

PathPayment: This is an interesting feature of stellar we at Sentit are excited about, ''Path payments allow a user to send an asset they already hold, and to convert it in transit into an asset a recipient wants to receive'', this feature allows Users on Sentit to Swap currencies, Send Cross-currency Payments (like USD --> NGN), Pay For Bills Using Their Crypto assets. To learn more about path payment you can visit the official doc on path payment.

Sponsored Reserves: This allows one account to sponsor the lumen reserves for another without giving over control of the underlying funds. For a Solution like Sentit, which aims to simplify stellar Blockchain for Cross-border payment, asking users to have XLM before signing up might be an issue, with this feature we can pay for a user required Lumen for creating an account on stellar while we charge them in their local Currency. This aligns with our mission and also simplified the whole process of user onboarding both for experienced and new users.

FeeBump: A fee-bump transaction enables any account to pay the fee for an existing transaction without the need to re-sign the existing transaction or manage sequence numbers. This is another interesting feature that aligns with our mission of simplifying Stellar Blockchain For Cross-border payments, with this feature both new and existing users don't need to have XLM in their account on stellar to send payments, swap and perform other stellar operations, Sentit pays the fee in Lumen while users are charged the fee in whatever currency they are sending. An example will be if a user is sending NGN to another user, the transaction Fee will be Charged in NGN while Sentit handles the network requirement for XLM.

With Sponsored Reserve and Feebump, we make onboarding users to the stellar Blockchain extremely easy.

Sep-001(Stellar Info File): Sentit implements sep-001 as a wallet that intends to integrate multiple anchors and this also allows us to publish more details about the wallet.

Sep-002(Federation protocol):  Federation addresses are the email-like address that allows us to map these addresses to an actual public key on the Blockchain, all users that signup on Sentit immediately has their own federation address that can start receiving and sending payment instantly.

Sep-010(Stellar Web Authentication): This is the authentication protocol for stellar Blockchain, it provides a standardized way for clients to interact safely outside of the stellar blockchain, we conform with this sep to allow smooth interaction between our users and anchors on the stellar network.

Sep-006(Deposit and Withdrawal API): This SEP defines the standard way for anchors and wallets to interact on behalf of users. This improves user experience by allowing wallets and other clients to interact with anchors directly without the user needing to leave the wallet to go to the anchor's site. We support the use of sep-006 for deposit and withdrawal of external assets like BTC, ETH and other tokens issued on the stellar Network.

Sep-024(Hosted Deposit and Withdrawal): This SEP defines the standard way for anchors and wallets to interact on behalf of users. This improves user experience by allowing wallets and other clients to interact with anchors directly without the user needing to leave the wallet to go to the anchor's site this also supports the interactive flow where anchors need more details about a specific address or user, Sentit support this flow to allow users make real-world fiat deposits and withdrawals onchain and also provide more details where anchors need them for User verification during deposit and withdrawal process. We directly work with anchors to make this process as seamless as possible.

TARGET MARKET

Sentit is targeting Migrant Workers within sub-Saharan Africa. This audience represents the main source of cross-border payment in sub-Saharan Africa and they contribute a significant share to their country's GDP. According to the World Bank(2020), in 2019, remittances accounted for up to 34.4 per cent of the national GDP in South Sudan, 21.3 per cent of the national GDP in Lesotho and 15.5 per cent of the GDP in the Gambia. Nigeria, the largest recipient of remittances in SSA, received approximately USD 23.8 billion; while countries such as Ghana, Kenya and Senegal received USD 3.5 billion, USD 2.8 billion and USD 2.5 billion, respectively.

This audience has family and relatives back home who rely heavily on this micro cross-border payment sent to them to cover domestic expenses like food, housing, education, health, etc. With Sentit, Migrant workers will be able to send payments back home at a very low-cost, fast Settlement time with a Simplified Blockchain Wallet.

REVENUE MODEL

Sentit revenue model will be derived from the under listed source, some of these are sources we have tested with our users (over 300) and they have proven profitable;

  • Transaction Fee: We charge User Transaction fees for transactions like Swap, Email Payments, Federated Address payments and the likes.
  • Commission from Bill Payment: Commission from Valued added services and Bill payment offered on the platform, at the moment Sentit get between 3-5% commission on Value Added sold on the wallet, We plan to add more Value Added Services and More countries as we progress based on Users Demand and Feedback.
  • Deposit and Withdrawal Fee: We presently charge a fee for deposits and withdrawals on each integrated anchor.

INDUSTRY AND MARKET RESEARCH

For the past few years, Blockchain has been a hot topic. This concept has become more valuable in day-to-day transactions. It can provide numerous benefits to businesses. Blockchain technology allows cross-border payment processing to be fast, secure, and less expensive by securing and locking each data block.

Remittances to low- and middle-income countries last year totalled $540 billion, just 1.5% less than in 2019. As of Q4 last year, the World Bank estimates that cross-border remittances had an average percentage fee of 6.51% and for remittance transactions through conventional banks corridors, The percentage is even higher with an average of 11%. Domestic remittances typically take a few seconds to clear, while international payments take between 2-3 days to clear. Considering that migrant workers are the primary initiators of cross-border remittances, many of whom rely heavily on these cash transfers for their livelihoods, this is worrisome indeed.

In the past decade, the G20 has made lowering cross-border remittance costs a priority, with the international consortium agreeing to lower the average transaction fee to 5%. Blockchain-based payment systems seem like the best way to accomplish this goal. Considering that most of the problems associated with conventional cross-border payments originate from the large number of intermediaries that are involved in processing a transaction(correspondent banks), Blockchain on the other hand does not involve the use of intermediaries, this can help drastically reduce the cost of sending Payment across borders.

Additional intermediaries increase processing fees, increase the number of failure points, and increase fraud risk somewhere in the payment process. The SWIFT network, which connects institutions involved in international payments, is known for its slow response times and security breaches. By establishing virtual currency regulations across the globe, it signals that blockchain technology for cross-border payments will be adopted more widely in the years ahead. Particularly in countries with sanctioned governments that are threatened with expulsion from SWIFT payments, it may be more challenging to make cross-border payments. Blockchain technology provides real-time trust in the verification of cross-border payments due to the use of encrypted distributed ledgers that provide the most reliable method of transferring funds between countries without the use of intermediaries like correspondent banks. By using it, third parties do not need to be involved in the verification process. Due to the lack of intermediaries, it is believed that Blockchain will significantly reduce the fees charged.

As blockchain solutions become more popular in the cross-border payments space, consumers are benefiting. International money transfers are becoming quicker, more reliable, and more secure in the future as the era of waiting three to four days for settlement and paying 8% fees is rapidly coming to an end.

Pitch deck
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Deliverables
First Deliverable

35k - Technical Development


  • A full-time Frontend Developer
  • A full-time Mobile Dev
  • A Full-time Marketing and Content manager
  • A full-time Backend Dev
  • Contract UI/UX (3 months)


10k - Operations:

  • Accountant
  • Legal and Compliance
  • Bank Charges
  • Services Provider Fees
  • Reserve for Sponsored Reserve
  • Reserve for Bill payments and other professional service charges.


10k - IT:

  • Web Hosting
  • Mailing Services
  • Server Maintenance
  • Database administration cost
  • Aws and other IT related expenses

Team

Name: Afolabi Sunday

Position: Founder

+ 3 Years of Banking Experience

+ 2 years of Software Development Experience

+ 3 years Working as Community Manager for Various Blockchain Projects

- Member Cryptographic Development Initiative of Nigerian (CDIN)

- Member Blockchain Nigeria User Group

- Director Bit-Summit


Name: Sina Namadian

Position:  UI/UX designer

+7 years in programming.

UI/UX designer

Financial algorithm designer


Name: Augustine O. Ojeh

Position: Content & Marketing

+3 Year in Content Marketing

+2 Year in Consumer Strategy

+1 Year Marketing Strategy


Name:Omotosho Abiodun

Position: Business Developments Manager

+3 Product Manager

+3 Finance