Stellar Community Fund

By uils

uils

SCF #17

$141.0K

Legacy v4.0 Award

Awarded

Double-sided wallet to empower mobility gig workers to store value against inflation

Products & Services

Did you know that +25M of mobility gig workers do not have access to credit in Latam? We are enabling the traditional financial system to reach a hugely in-need underserved population through a unique and proprietary driving credit score that replaces outdated inefficient risk assessment mechanisms. We are the company behind the tech: we have a mobile app with a fiat wallet, a 100% automatic back-office platform and a behavioral scoring engine that can effectively capture the risk of the customer segment we are trying to serve.

In emerging markets, inflation forces users to find alternative ways of storing value. Argentina is one of the Latin American countries hit hardest by ever-increasing inflation. With an average annual inflation rate of 24% over the past 20 years in Argentina, the depreciation of the peso ranks as the most relevant issue for Argentines. To protect themselves from devaluation, people typically preserve their wealth by exchanging the Argentine peso for the US dollar. This process usually involves opening foreign bank accounts and holding onto the physical bills at home. This leaves them with no safe way to store or use their money.

We want to enhance our value proposal, adding a USDC alternative account to our existing fiat wallet. After the implementation of the blockchain-based wallet, the user will be able to receive a Stellar address automatically, right after his KYC has been accepted. If they want to buy (or sell) USDC, they will get the transaction quote automatically in real time. We will collect the corresponding amount from the user’s national currency virtual account and will send the corresponding USDC balance to their Stellar address in a few seconds. This new feature will provide our users a new saving strategy in countries where unstable economies push them to escape from their own currency because of its constant devaluation. This happens in Argentina, where we are already operating, and other Latin American countries.

We have participated in the Stellar Community Bootcamp where we had the chance to design, prototype and validate our ideas with real users. During the interviews, 8 real users of our wallet were invited to complete 2 different processes. First, the purchase of USDC using available funds in their fiat wallet. Second, to perform a cashout of USDC to a different account. Our users are not familiar with crypto so we did some research on that as well. From all the users interviewed, only 2 mentioned that they are able to save, but 7 said they would do it through our wallet… one of them wanted to do it NOW! A few learnings in the process: wording is important… withdraw and transfer may not be understood the same way; security during cashout… some users mentioned they wanted to schedule an “automatic” purchase once they collected their wages in the wallet; and some minor details but really useful to learn!

Bootcamp workspace - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1C6S5GRQg7Hv76Bi3An5WSomV5fln9i6v