DIASPORA BANK PROJECT

Inspiration

The journey to building the diaspora bank was inspired by a personal experience, a perspective of one of our team members’ starting with his journey moving from Africa to the United States. Just like most immigrants, sending part of their checks home to either relatives and friends was part of our norm.

During his 20 year sojourn in the US, he’s come to understand the unfairness of paying exorbitant charges just to send money home considering the fact that both Federal and State taxes were always deducted from paychecks.

2 years ago with the emergence of multiple blockchain applications, we saw an opportunity to change the status quo. We embarked on a difficult task to build from the ground up the diaspora bank - a bank that serves the needs of a diasporan both in their adopted country and ancestral continent (Africa) - to implement a near-zero-fee remittance charges from any part of the world to Africa and addition to other unique products and services.

To provide a better perspective of the exploitation and the size of the global remittance market sustained by African immigrants and expats here are some of the data:

Cross border cash transfers average at: $90B Yearly remittance by African Diaspora into Africa which result in 4 lx local spendings from remittances in adopted counties: $360B Yearly. Service fees are applied when sending Remittance to Africa- Remittance Charges Annually on average 7-10% = $6-9 Billion which directly are losses suffered by the families that rely on remittances.

The Diaspora community is in 141 countries around the world, sending funds to 54 African countries

What it does

The Diaspora Bank is designed specifically to fill the missing product-market fit by creating an all-in-one neobank solution to the fee, capital shortage, and border-limitation challenges facing the African payment ecosystem. Specifically, the Diaspora Bank leverages the Ripple XRP Ledger to create a near-0 fee flow of cross-border remittance funds to Africa, and additionally, provides the sender a unique opportunity to use their saved fees to invest in well-vetted capacity-building projects of their choosing with stable returns. Our mobile app interface has a sender's dashboard with a fee comparison feature, a receiver's dashboard with domestic fiat off ramps and P2P payment options, and an investment wallet listing well-vetted projects with stable returns, allowing a seamless user experience with remittance services, checking accounts, and investment opportunities using stablecoins, CBDC, and fiat.

How we built it

The diaspora bank project was conceived as the child of necessity, our quest to execute a multi sovereign CBDC system to cater to 54 African Nations was a critical component that we had to execute. . Remittances are sent as USD-based stablecoins, and convert seamlessly to fiat and CBDC using the diaspora bank’s liquidity pool. Leveraging our partnership with the African Union Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) and Central Banks, the Diaspora Bank allows Multi-Sovereign CBDC interoperability with each African Nation’s CBDC domestic fiat currency and CBDC using correspondent accounts.

Challenges we ran into

The major challenge we had was getting a test XRPL account, it was a bit troublesome.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Some of our most cherished accomplishments was figuring out the mechanics of delivering a multi layered end-to-end unique experience in addition to pursuing partnerships with African Union PAPSS and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), additionally the implementation of the near zero fee component and also the stablecoin liquidity pools aggregation tool.

What we learned

One of the valuable lessons we’ve learned was understanding in-depth the Ripple CBDC infrastructure and figuring out the integration of every component to the diaspora bank project. Secondly, the endless possibilities of the XRPL to the project, technically speaking.

What's next for DIASPORA BANK PROJECT

The natural next steps for the diaspora project is to build a global neo-community bank that offers near zero-remittance fee transactions to Africa and aggregation of savings automatedly in an investment multi sovereign CBDC/Stablecoin/currency wallet.

With development already underway, the Diaspora neobank will offer brand new financial services in 4 phases: remittance, CBDC interoperability, investment, asset ownership, and even employment, all in one mobile hub.

Built With

• javascript
• node.js
• react
• ripple
• tailwind