Blockchain tech offers multiple paths to financial inclusion for unbanked

Published at: May 26, 2022

Financial inclusion, accessible services and the unbanked are standard talking points in many conversations about crypto. But, the details may remain somewhat fuzzy — the people who talk about crypto are generally those already inside the financial system. There are people who are actively working to increase financial inclusion and access to services for the vast number of people who are unbanked or underserved. 

CBDC for the people

Central bank digital currencies (CBDC) will serve different purposes in different places. In economies where individuals have moved away from high levels of cash usage, like those of the United States and the United Kingdom, there will be relatively little retail demand for CBDC, but there are places where cash is in short supply and CBDC can serve to increase basic opportunities for prosperity and economic growth. 

nChain works with central banks to facilitate the use of CBDC through its Digital Cash product. nChain director of commercial and strategy, Simit Naik — who has experience working in West Africa — told Cointelegraph that CBDCs in that region should “ensure continued access to an inclusive and stable form of central bank money for citizens, when physical cash usage is declining.”

Having access only to physical cash limits people to the most basic forms of transaction. A CBDC would provide entry into the digital economy and introduce new business models by supporting micro- and nano-payments. Access to broadband to participate in the digital economy would be rare, but mobile phone penetration and connectivity are “far greater” than one might expect, Naik assured. According to the GMSA — a mobile communications association — there were 5.3 billion unique mobile subscribers in the world as of the second quarter of 2022.

A CBDC can save central banks money and time by providing real-time access to data to inform monetary policy. A typical implementation of the nChain Digital Cash product would be for the central bank to dedicate a portion of its reserves as collateral for digital cash. Then, nChain would support the central bank as it minted and distributed digital cash tokens on a one-to-one basis with the collateralized reserve money. It is important that the CBDC be non-intermediated, as it may be used in places where no financial infrastructure exists.

Civil servants’ salaries would be paid in CBDC as a first step, then it would be distributed to merchants. The central bank could also use it to make payments, such as welfare and stimulus-related payments, directly to the public.

Related: Here’s what’s happening in Web3 across Africa

Like Digital Cash, the purpose of nChain’s Digital Money solution is to provide access to financial services to people who traditionally have not had access to those services. The Digital Money product is account-based, however, allowing it to model more traditional forms of money. Commercial banks and fintechs can use it to introduce new financial products. It can be used for microlending and for tokenization of assets and commodities, which allows people to become investors, as brokerage services are regulated but do not necessarily require a broker. 

The advantages of a credit rating

Another approach to expanding access to financial services is to create visibility for the billions of people who lack credit scores. According to Brendan Playford, founder of Pngme and Masa Finance, 1.5 billion people worldwide have credit scores, and 3.3 billion people are “credit invisible.” That means that they are creditworthy, but their credit history is not associated with them in the traditional banking system. An accessible credit score is a prerequisite for many financial services, especially credit, and it may impact identity verification and access to insurance.

Targeting the one billion people, mobile money economy and processing the data from peer-to-peer micropayments made through established providers can enable the scoring of previously credit invisible people. In Africa, only 20–30% of the population has a credit score. Pngme has partnered with an international credit scoring agency to use mobile money data to raise that level to 60–70%. According to GSMA, mobile money transactions in Sub-Saharan Africa were worth $697.7 billion, out of a world total of $1 trillion, in 2021.

Banks in Africa “struggle to serve underserved markets, so Pngme is privately providing infrastructure for an end user to create a credit score where they otherwise wouldn’t be able to do it,” Playford said.

Data captured by Pngme is one of the data sources used to drive on-chain lending through Masa Finance. Masa Finance is a decentralized credit protocol that connects off-chain credit data to decentralized finance (DeFi), creating a “soulbound” credit profile nonfungible token (NFT). Masa uses the mobile-friendly and scalable Celo blockchain to lend small sums using anonymized data for underwriting and stablecoins as a settlement currency that can be converted into fiat or cryptocurrency. Playford told Cointelegraph:

“Inclusion is really about choice. If you’re underserved and you need to get financed, you can find it, but your terms are incredibly unfavorable. What this technology does is it makes a fairer ecosystem, where more people can offer products in an open framework.”

Masa Finance recently announced the completion of pre-seed funding and expects a full-scale launch in three to six months. A testnet has been launched and its mobile app is in beta and has about 40,000 users. The app will encompass 10,000 data sources in 78 countries when it starts full operations in the next few weeks. 

“The reality is all of the work that I’m doing is disrupting the way in which banks have a monopoly in lending. We are building an ecosystem that serves the top to the bottom of the pyramid,” Playford said.

Accessible banking services

DeFi can combine with traditional banking to offer the best of both, providing services to the unbanked and improving the services available to those who are already inside the system. EQIFi, a decentralized finance platform, is backed by EQIBank, a fully regulated digital bank licensed in Dominica. EQIFi provides a platform for DeFi products while operating with EQUIBank accounts, loans custody, OTC and wealth management. It also offers peer-to-peer transfers and microlending.

“Not everyone needs a loan that requires a credit rating,” EQIFi founder and CEO Brad Yasar told Cointelegraph.

The cost savings associated with decentralized finance enables EQIBank and EQIFi to operate in parts of the world where a large corporate bank would find it prohibitively expensive to do business. Yasar said:

“We wanted to create a platform that brings decentralized finance with traditional finance in a way that opens doors to all people.” 

Because of its link to EQIBank, EQIFi is also subject to regulatory requirements and is registered in the British Virgin Islands and Dubai. Yasar is a vocal proponent of regulation and transparency in the crypto space

EQIFi products also offer financial inclusivity in the form of “the kind of rates and returns which were previously only available to institutional investors and the wealthy elite,” according to promotional material. Yasar described the platform’s yield aggregator as its “crown jewel.”

“Licensed and regulated projects like EQIFi are paving the way for a transition from anonymous high-risk DeFi platforms to safer, more transparent versions,” Yasar told Cointelegraph earlier. “With DeFi, we can offer more products cheaper to a much larger portion of the world population.”

Tags
Related Posts
Major payments app WeChat to add support for China's digital yuan
WeChat, China's largest messaging app and one of the country's most popular payment services, will start supporting the Chinese government's digital currency. On Jan. 6, 2021, Tencent announced that it will begin accepting digital yuan payments via its proprietary mobile wallet WeChat Pay, according to a local news report. China has been developing a digital yuan since 2014, and it has yet to be implemented nationwide. If people start paying for goods and services with WeChat, which has more than 1 billion users, it will give it a significant boost. WeChat's enormous user base and multitude of wrapped services have …
Adoption / Jan. 6, 2022
Swiss central bank tests wholesale CBDC with commercial partners
Switzerland took another step to clarify the roadmap for integrating central bank digital currencies (CBDC) into the current financial system. The Swiss National Bank (SNB), the country's central bank, completed the second phase of Project Helvetia with its partners by integrating wholesale CBDC into the existing back-office systems and processes of five banks, namely Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Hypothekarbank Lenzburg and UBS. The Bank for International Settlements and Swiss financial infrastructure service provider SIX joined as partners of SNB in Project Helvetia Phase II, which took place during the fourth quarter of 2021. Envisioned as a multi-phase investigation on …
Adoption / Jan. 13, 2022
One man's plan to orange pill a nation: Bitcoin Senegal
Nourou is a 29 year old Bitcoiner with a vision for his home country. A former financial analyst for a French Bank, he founded Bitcoin Senegal in late 2021. Following an eight-year stint in France, during which Nourou earned his Masters degree, Bitcoin Chaincode qualifications, and a deep understanding of legacy financial markets thanks to work in investment finance, he was primed to orange-pill Senegal. He returned to his home country disheartened to learn that Coinmap (a website showing Bitcoin vendors and merchants around the world), had zero locations in Senegal. That’s despite singer and influencer Akon’s plans to set …
Adoption / Feb. 28, 2022
‘We don’t like our money:’ The story of the CFA and Bitcoin in Africa
Nearly 150 million people use the franc of the Financial Community of Africa (CFA) on a daily basis, from Senegal in the extreme west to Gabon in the center of the continent. Used in 14 countries, the CFA is pegged to the euro, printed in France and its monetary policy is controlled by Western powers. As Fodé Diop, a Bitcoin (BTC) Lightning developer hailing from Senegal details, “the IMF and the French government still control the currency.” While the official peg to the euro is 1 euro to 655.96 CFA francs, its purchasing power has eroded over time. In 1994, …
Adoption / March 16, 2022
The history and evolution of the fintech industry
The financial technology (fintech) industry has its roots in the late 20th century, with the advent of electronic banking and online stock trading. Since then, fintech has expanded and changed over time as a result of technological and internet advances. As a result, new financial services and products have been created with the intention of enhancing accessibility, simplicity and effectiveness in the financial services industry. The 2008 global financial crisis aided the growth of fintech by increasing customer demand for non-traditional banking and financial services. By enabling customers to access financial services from any location at any time, the rise …
Adoption / Feb. 7, 2023