Stellar Community Fund

By Emigro

Emigro Launch

SCF #20

$33.9K

Legacy v5.0 Community Award

Awarded

Emigro is the stablecoin-based, card-less digital payments wallet for digital nomads, long-term travelers and expats in LatAm.

Products & Services

Emigro is a pair of self-custody mobile app wallets for the tourism industry, one targeted at international travelers, and the other at small and medium sized tourism vendors located in Brazil. The vendor app will generate a dynamic QR code containing the vendor details and the details of the payment requested. The consumer app will be able to scan QR codes and approve payments. Both apps will have fiat on/off ramp capability, with path payments between them, currency swaps and sponsored fees. While the apps will have a different focus for the front-end functionality, they'll share a back-end. The functionality will mimic traditional fintech apps such as Revolut and NuBank, with no initial focus on the broader crypto industry.

Brazil was chosen as the initial market because it has a large international tourism industry and a new national instant payment method was introduced in 2020 that foreigners can't easily access to make local payments. This payment method, called Pix, was created by the Central Bank to connect all major banks and financial products in Brazil for consumers and businesses in an instant and low-cost way. Early 2023, two years from launch, Pix had grabbed 35% of all payments market share, which is on par with debit and credit cards combined, who lost 5% share in this time to Pix. Pix is so successful that other LatAm countries, such as Colombia and Chile, are looking to replicate it. Emigro will be an international version of Pix, focusing on cross-border C2B and B2B payments, connecting the best fiat on/off ramp methods directly from bank accounts.

Pix is a Brazilian system and foreign travelers to Brazil can't easily access it, which can cause difficulties as it's becoming so widely used that vendors would prefer to accept it over cash or foreign credit cards, which they pay 3-7% in fees to accept. This is creating a situation where long-term tourists and digital nomads are having difficulties in making local payments and keeping their costs down, without becoming a tax resident of Brazil and opening a local bank account. They want to start using Pix, but are essentially blocked from gaining access.

Luckily, the Brazilian Central Bank is very fintech and crypto-friendly and Stellar anchors can be created that can access Pix. This allows Stellar-based wallets to easily get access to the Brazilian market with payments in a cost-effective and instant method. The challenge then is to gain acceptance in the market, which has been my focus while the tech is being built.

There are many opportunities to expand the product and use Soroban, but I need to get the product going in the market first. Other Stellar-based products have access to or operate within Brazil, but Emigro is the sole product focused on the use-case of foreigners making local payments in Brazil as the starting point. A direct relationship with Transfero, (BRZ on Stellar), is being established to solidify Emigro's place in the Brazil market.