Inspiration
These recent years we have been watching the development of the online banking and we have noticed that most of the applications don't cover the most basic consumer needs such as robust accessibility, consumer-centricity and simplicity of UX.
We aim to build a tech-first 👩💻, simple 🪄, beautiful💫 and user-friendly 🤝 Neobank that puts modern consumer needs in first place leaving behind the vestiges of the past.
The main feature of our service is the cashback platform 💸 that will allow both consumers and merchants to profit from the common ecosystem 🌍.
We empathise especially with SMEs that almost lost their businesses due to the pandemic and we choose to support them as our prior mission 🎗️.
Added value for all parties:
☑ End Users :
- increase in purchasing power throughout cashback
☑ Merchant Partners :
- customer attraction
- increase in turnover (our app will analyse the purchase history of end users and incentivize them to re-purchase at the partner with cashback advantage, think retargeting in real life)
What it does
Our application maintains all the basic features of a standard online bank, such as :
- account management (IBAN, KYC)
- payments (X-Pay, SEPA, transaction analysis & infographics)
- real-time payment notifications
But also some flagship features for clients, such as :
- direct cashback on the card
- custom recommendations of profitable alternatives based on previous purchases
As well as an intuitive onboarding platform for merchant partners where they can manage continuous cashback plans and promo campaigns.
How we built it
https://github.com/Formula-0001-Rapyd-Fintech-Grand-Prix/ProjectZ
Currently our MVP platform consists of 2 parts:
- Banking platform - consists of scalable API backend powered by Rapyd for client wallets, transactions and money transfers. As well as iOS app that queries the backend. This is a very basic POC we've implemented currently with Rapyd Sandbox.
- Cashback platform - a self service UI for merchant partners who are willing to be a part of our network. On backend side - a real time transactions analyser computes cashback values for end users and credits their accounts as soon as possible. Implementation is in progress.
Challenges we ran into
Testing real world interactions is hard, for example it's quite challenging to simulate a sale on the Rapyd Sandbox and get a proper webhook call with merchant parameters.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- We were able to implement a POC version that uses Rapyd API in short period of time with a clean API and proper AuthN / AuthZ system.
- We've managed to model the value proposition and compute the gain for all sides, including the margin vs number of clients that we can attract in the next 3 years progressively.
What we learned
- Financial API architecture and how to design a Fintech product starting from basic principles such as user, wallet, balances, transactions, etc..
- Transaction Authorization flow and how complex it is.
What's next for Project B
IN PROGRESS:
- Go over basic principals of a banking application: storing value, transfer money and add missing parts to our API and client.
- Audit the current solution on security risks and take additional steps towards sensitive data protection🛡️ and compliance.
- Partner with a UX designer and reimplement UI properly.
TODO:
Once the MVP pilot is approved, our next steps will be :
- Establish a continuous client success analysis in order to improve the efficiency and user-centricity of the UX for end users.
- Scale the merchant platform in order to customize the integration process and the tech support for our partners at all levels.
- In collaboration with online investment partners, valorise the cashback ecosystem and promote the culture of financial consciousness 🤓 by investing the cashback income.
LINKS:
- API is deployed on Heroku https://projectz-backend.herokuapp.com/docs
- iOS app is available for internal testers on TestFlight. Feel free to reach out to us if you want to take a look - Slack (Alexey E.)
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