We want to scale our ability to provide Stellar based tokens prepaid cards in Argentina, and make them available to any third party platform user through the on-off ramp mechanism.

Our service empowers Stellar based projects to offer their users an international plastic card, enabling seamless fund transfers between their Stellar accounts, facilitating purchases at any retail store, and providing real-time transaction history and card balance tracking.

Problem: Limited Access to Traditional Financial Systems. Significant unbanked population.

Solution: We provide people with access to a broader range of payments services and the ability to use their Stellar funds in real-world transactions, even if they have no bank account!

Comments: Main Stellar FIAT Anchors focus on banking integration, which is great considering that banks are the primary providers of "traditional finance" services. However, it raises the question: What about the unbanked population? World Bank data reveals that approximately 50% of Argentina adult population lacks access to formal financial services or a bank account, driving retail transactions to heavily rely on cash.

• Problem: Complex Fund Movements and Transaction Tracking
• Solution: Our service simplifies the process of request, load, unload, track their transactions and balance in real-time by ensuring full compliance with SEP-6 and SEP-24, enabling seamless interaction with any anchor. This solution also implies modifications to the current SEPs versions due to the fact that SEPs doesn’t consider this use case in detail.

Audience: Our service benefits any platform that integrates with Stellar and have or seek to have users in Argentina. It is particularly useful for those who face limited access to traditional financial systems, bank account, or those who prefer to avoid the banking system. However, and due to the dollar exchange rate restrictions here in Argentina, it is particularly beneficial for those who save or earn in dollars be able to spend at the real market exchange rate!

How it works: The card is an internationally accepted prepaid credit card, affiliated with either VISA or Mastercard (to be determined; today is Mastercard), and denominated in Argentine Pesos. We have the capability to issue physical and virtual cards to any KYC’ed customer, and ship the card directly to the customer's designated address.

When a customer requests a withdrawal, we initiate a process where we transfer the corresponding FIAT amount to our provider, thus topping up the specific card's balance. We support several tokens, including XLM, USDC, yUSDC, and Anclap’s ARS, which can be used to fund the card. We will enable the mechanism to request cards, get card transactions (payments) and get balance, but we need to work carefully to make the best standard proposal that ensures interoperability and compatibility.

Since our last SCF round, we achieved significant progress, especially on expanding connectivity to several LATAM countries, building the specialized legal/regulatory/compliance team to run cryptocurrencies operations, and enhancing our anchor tech infrastructure to support Stellar builders:

• EXPANSION: Developed on-off ramps for three currencies: Argentine Peso, Peruvian Sol, and Colombian Peso. Establishing a new currency anchor implies lot of work.

* Regulatory/Compliance: Understand and comply with different local regulatory requirements regarding cryptocurrencies, KYC, AML and implement data protection procedures.

* Banking Infrastructure: Establish banking relationships, ensuring they have deep understanding of the entire fiat<>crypto processing by working on teaching them about how stablecoins work and how transparent is a Stellar Anchor flow of funds.

* Trust and Transparency, Ongoing Maintenance, Customer Support, Security, Ongoing Monitoring

• LICENSES: We went through the necessary legal and regulatory processes to acquire authorization from the Argentinian Central Bank to operate as a PSPCP. It grants us the legal permission to process payments, provide virtual banking accounts (CVU) to users, facilitate financial transactions, and offer payment-related services within the country.
• DELIVERY: Processed thousands hundreds of deposits and withdrawals in Argentina and Peru.
• COMPANY STRUCTURE: Established a robust legal structure comprising five companies across four countries.
• TEAM: Expanded our tech and operations team to 10 members.
• STELLAR COMMUNITY: Supported several community projects (SCF winners), fostering connectivity and investing time and resources to allow them to build on top of anchors.
• COMMITMENT: Demonstrated the necessary skills, dedication, and organizational framework to enhance connectivity between Stellar and traditional financial systems while providing ongoing support to community projects, enabling further growth and development.

This project is made possible thanks to our Argentinian Payment Service Provider (PSP) license.

We started as simple as possible! We developed a functional prototype that showcased our capabilities and the service's benefits at the recent Stellar Kinetic Buenos Aires event. More than 30 attendees who received the cards spent over 600 USD in just four days, demonstrating their enthusiasm for the service. Additionally, several companies that integrates Stellar USDC on its projects expressed high interest in adopting it.

Due to cost limitations and the absence of providers for small-scale testing, it is almost impossible to test it out without facing the risk of losing money. However, we managed to figure out how to carry out the prototype by only issuing up to 1000 cards. The project allowed us to demonstrate the service, validate the necessity, and gather lot of feedback from users that allow us to iterate on it. This experience provided valuable insights and highlighted important considerations for selecting the right provider for future scalability and to integrate it within the standard anchor protocol.

Given the positive reception of the prototype and the considerable interest from companies, we are now poised to undertake a large-scale integration effort. This endeavor will require substantial work and resources, but it represents a significant milestone in bridging the divide between Stellar and real-world payment systems.

The first deliverable needs to be assigned to the commercial agreement and initial set up with the Card Bin Sponsorship Provider. As you can see (or request directly to the vendor) or their proposal (-confidential document, please request access-) there is a set up fee of 40K, and a 5K monthly recurring fee to access the service. We are using the first deliverable plus Anclap's founders self funds to do the sign off with the provider and turn project's engine on!

From that point forward, the process of setting up the environment and developing the integration begins. Our developers will work 2 months to have it completed 100%. Simultaneously, administrative processes for card art design and Mastercard approval are being worked out.

Despite of the fact of only being able to have our environment ready at vendor side (and start with the integration) before the sign-off and set up fee payment, our team are working on drafting the anchor endpoints that must be enabled in order to allow any platform to access the service. On this point, we will make our best effort to design something that could be discussed within the Stellar Development Google Groups channel as a protocol upgrade.

Those 2 items (Contract signed with the Vendor + Draft of the anchor implementation) are the milestones we can achieve as the first deliverable (10% of total project).

How can a reviewer check you completed your first deliverable?

We will provide the reviewer with the signed documents between our Argentine local company and the Card Bin Sponsorship Provider.

We will provide the documentation on how the services will be integrated within our anchor infrastructure so wallet's user can access without restriction. We are also open to do a call in order to discuss design concepts.