Stellar Community Fund

By Smilepay Global

Smilepay

SCF #10

$50.0K

Legacy v3.0 Award

Awarded

Send money like a text, globally.

Products & Services

WHAT WE DO

Smilepay is a Peer-to-Peer mobile app and USSD that helps African diasporas send money, buy airtime, and pay utility bills for friends and family in Africa, in real-time and free of charge.

HOW IT WORKS

Both the sender abroad and recipient in Ethiopia download the Smilepay app (recipients in Ethiopia can also use Smilepay USSD). The sender connects their credit/debit card and tops up their Smilepay App. The sender sends money instantly and free of charge to the recipient using their phone number or Smile-tag. Recipients receive money in their local currency. Users receive money in local currency and can spend it in the app to pay bills or buy airtime or withdraw to their bank account remotely, which avoids cash pickups. The sender can also directly buy airtime and pay bills from abroad for friends and family in Ethiopia, allowing them more control over how money is spent.

*Through the Smilepay app, the sender can also send money directly to the recipient's bank account with a 1% transaction fee. It's not a must for the recipient to download the Smilepay app to receive payment, but they can benefit from free transaction fees when they use the app to receive money.

WHY?

High transaction fee by the incumbent: The average cost of sending money to Africa is 8.17%, making it the world’s most expensive remittance corridor. Recipients in Africa have to physically go to the remittance company branch to collect the cash that their family and friends sent them. It's time-consuming and an unnecessary hassle. Senders do not have control of how the money they send is used by the recipients. For example, money sent for utility bills is misused.

OUR UNIQUE ADVANTAGE

We use Blockchain technology to make cross-border money transactions free or extremely cheap. Diasporas will be able to send as small as 50 cents to Africa instantly, 24/7. Other than sending money, Smilepay will enable diasporas abroad to pay for utility bills and buy airtime for friends and family back home, and we are the first to do all of this in Ethiopia.

OUR TARGET CUSTOMERS

Diasporas living abroad that have family and friends in Africa. African youth that have family and friends abroad. Freelance workers that get paid from abroad.

CUSTOMER INDUSTRIES

Businesses that want to sell their services through the Smilepay app (Airlines, Utility companies, airtime distributors, sports betting, and more).

OUR MISSION

Offer free, instant, and frictionless movement of money domestically and across borders to Africa.

*We are starting by helping Ethiopian diasporas living in the USA to send money to Ethiopia.

HOW WE USE STELLAR

We are going to issue a stablecoin that is tethered to the USD and Ethiopian national currency Ethiopian “Birr” and maintain the equivalent fiat reserve with our partner bank. On ramp for senders: We are using “Stripe API” to enable users in the USA to top-up money to their Smilepay app using their credit/debit card. Off ramp for the recipient: We are using “Ethio Switch API” to enable users to withdraw money that they have received from the Smilepay app to any of their local bank accounts in Ethiopia.

WHY STELLAR?

We needed affordable, secure, and fast transactions. It allows our app to hold multiple currencies. It is simple and fast to integrate. Future innovation opportunities. It fits our future goal of introducing cryptocurrency purchase, storage, exchange, and more.

Requested Budget

$50.0K

Team

We’re a three-person founding team working full-time since early 2024. I’ve been building Smilepay since 2021, leading it through several pivots. My younger brother Eyob joined from day one, initially part-time and now full-time. He’s a skilled backend developer who helped build our early integrations. Eyob brought in his college friend Fikremariam (Fike), who joined in 2023 and became our full-time CTO in 2024. Fike has strong technical expertise in blockchain, mobile, and backend systems. Together, we operate from the same office (my mom’s house) and have deep trust and alignment. This is our first venture together, but we’ve all worked on side projects in crypto, payments, and infrastructure.