BAMBY - Banking for Trust & Inclusion

Inspiration

After a stressful day at work, I was rushing from the office to the supermarket and walked by this homeless person called TOM.

I felt sorry for him and wanted to give him some money. But when reaching to my pocket I didn't find any cash so I just smiled to him and walked away.

At home, I was still thinking about TOM and how wonderful it would have been to have an app to simply donate money.

BAMBY was born

BAMBY is For Bank Account Managed By You

What it does

Problem

More than 35% of the homeles population do not have an Id and consequently it’s hard for them to prove themselves, to find a job, benefit from social security and healthcare, and of course have a bank account.

Solution

The BAMBY concept is very simple and easy to implement. With our institutional partners, shelters and soup kitchens, we will be working together to identify the homeless people as a first step to the inclusion journey (exploration will start in New York).

Shelters are the first touching points of the enrollement process as they know these people very well , know their problems, their lives and know exactly how BAMBY team can help them.

The identification process will start with equipping our shelters and soup kitchens partners in NY under the aegis of the counties with biometricc identification material.

Biometrics is the most suitable mean of identifying and authenticating individuals in a reliable and fast though unique biological characteristics.

The second step is the creation of the digital Id using the collected biometric data. Based on this data we will be able to generate a unique QR code and a unique PIN number as a two vectors authentication. The QR code and the PIN are shared with the homeless person (Paper or 3D printed => no need for a mobile phone) which enables the creation of a bank account without a minimum opening deposit.

BAMBY is not just an app that enables donations

BAMBY is a business model that will enable financial inclusion for the homeless population of this world. In order to reach this goal and literally provide a roof over the heads of the homeless, we are focusing on the following three main pillars : Digital ID, Donations, Financial Education.

How we built it

We are planning to use Biometrics & Blockchain for the Digital Id. The QR code technology for donations and the Artificial Intelligence to track & predict the spendings. The idea is to be able to suggest tailored saving plans and Loans for the Homeless person to start a business and be financially independant.

we are planning to put some alerts in place in case spendings exceeds an amount of money (suspicious activities or transations : buy drug, alchool...etc)

Finastra APIs are used for the payment part.

As a prototype phase we have used the PROTO.IO plateform to create BAMBY App & Website.

Challenges we ran into

Technology challenges : Blockchain, AI and Fintech solutions were unfamiliar for us but we have a clear idea now about how to integrate them to the whole solution.

Legal Challenges : still need to be finalized by consulting some lawyers and financial experts (ongoing)

Accomplishments that we are proud of

We managed to build up a business model we truly believe in to have a great social impact.

What we learned

We learned a lot about Technology management , Fintech and blockchain . We really believe that technology can be a social inclusion enabler and a huge opportunity for startups to make the world a better place.