Inspiration

$30 billion is sent in remittances every single year in the Philippines. This makes up 10% of the country's GDP. However, conglomerates take a significant cut of this amount (typically between 8-12% of the remitted amount). In other words, the money that is supposed to be received by lower and middle-class Filipinos ends up going to large corporations, fueling a cycle of inequality.

What it does

Our startup, Expay, allows Filipino families back home to receive these remittances on their mobile SIM card wallets on their smartphones. This money can be sent at a less than 1% cost. Even smaller than these other start-ups.

How we built it

We do this by using the Bitcoin-lightning network to send money across borders and pair this API to the said user's smartphone without having them deal with any of the technicalities. Money just appears in their online wallets.

Challenges we ran into

When sharing the start-up idea, we came across a lot of criticism and concern about the crypto aspect. However, we made sure in our marketing materials and pitch to clearly explain crypto is necessary to make our product as fast and cheap as possible. We avoid crypto volatility by ensuring that the money transfer happens in less than 0.1 seconds. The chance of crypto crashing that quickly is close to 0%.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’ve obtained an MOA with the Philippines' largest telecommunications company, Globe, which is used by over 60% of Filipinos to make this happen. Once we finalize our MVP by the end of this month, users will be able to use this platform to send money across borders with the aforementioned cost and time value propositions.

What we learned

The best start-ups are the ones that communicate with their customers. We have been extremely customer and data-driven in our business decisions. As often as possible, we seek and have good conversations with relevant stakeholders.

What's next for ExPay

Globe is just our first partner for now but this will expand quickly to other platforms such as pawn shops, convenience stores, digital interfaces, and hopefully everywhere. We'll be sure to constantly receive feedback as we launch the first MVP at the end of this month.