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Enabling instant cross-border payments within Africa
Recorded: June 9, 2023 Duration: 1:05:48Space Recording
Full Transcription
How are you doing today and where are the rest of the guys?
yo hi think um can you hear me sorry can you hear any music in the background
if you can't just like respond with that emoji or something i can't hear anything
no you can't this is so weird
i also can't hear anything too anyhow um i don't know twitter is twitter hi folks hi um
ogre or ogre i don't know sorry for pronouncing the wrong way um welcome hi feyi uh welcome welcome
welcome we are just waiting for the afroconomy folks i don't know um i don't know if you would be um
if you would be like co-hosting this space or like somebody from somebody using the afroconomy handle
we'll be doing that still
but i'm going to send you
an invite now
hello good afternoon
can everybody hear me okay yes i can hear you
craftsen okay um yes good evening or depending on your time zone um please if you don't mind um
inviting august well because oh yeah that's fine hosting or anchoring the space would anybody be
joining with the afroconomy handle himself um i believe so um let me just
check on that
so i believe so
okay
okay all right then uh okay i have sent you a um an invite or a speaker invites
i don't know if you've seen it but um i could send one again now
um yeah i've sent it again um yeah okay i think it's up
okay okay it's up um hi welcome again um so we're just going to use maybe like five more minutes to
wait for other folks to join and we can kick off but in the in the meantime unfortunately twitter
unfortunately twitter bots that always supplies us music is on a break today
um so yeah just let me try to get everybody in here first
I was saying that, yeah, we're having an AMA session with the team of Afroconomy.
Just in case you haven't had a proper intro, just feel free to click on the handle up there
called Afroconomy.
There's a profile up here called Afroconomy and have a guide as to how some of the conversations
that we're going to have today is going to go.
But basically, I will be asking the team, who is here and also Dr. Feiyu, who is also here
today, some interesting conversations just so we can get to know them and also understand
understand how the Afroconomy product or like ecosystem in general is pushing the African mission.
Afroconomy is basically a decentralized financial payment network that is using most of the tools
that the blockchain that the blockchain can provide the blockchain can provide to us to solve and also review the traditional payment structure within Africa.
I think specifically, I'm actually interested in the cross-border payment solution that Afroconomy provides.
I'm basically interested in understanding exactly how that works.
So, I will spend like 30 minutes just like asking the team questions and then we'll open up the space in 20 more minutes,
in the last 20 more minutes for folks in the audience to ask their questions.
So, hi, Olga and Dr. Feiyu, would you guys like to do a quick intro?
Hi, I think Dr. Feiyu should start first.
Okay, hello everyone, good evening or good morning or afternoon depending on your location.
Thanks all for joining.
I think I can see a lot of our team members are on the call as well.
Thanks to you guys for taking our time to join.
So, yes, we are here today purposefully to discuss about Afroconomy and then the solutions we are working on and we have worked on.
And just generally the payment infrastructure we are trying to set up that can facilitate or make cross-border payments a breeze across the whole of Africa really and the world.
So, I'm Feiyu by name, I'm founder of Afroconomy, so I'm here to answer any questions that people can have or just discuss generally.
But thank you all for joining and we hope it's going to be an exciting one.
Awesome.
Olga, would you like to do a quick intro?
Not really, I'm fine.
I'm fine.
I'm fine.
I'm fine.
I'm fine.
I'm fine.
Okay.
Awesome.
All right.
So, I guess this question specifically is for Dr. Feiyu.
So, I am curious as to, you know, where you see the states of TradFi, you know, and even, you know, general cross-border payments in Africa.
Like, you know, what are the key things or what do you think are some of the, like, key blockers that we are experiencing as a region?
Okay.
So, I've had my own personal challenges in terms of cross-border payments around Africa.
And so, I will just talk from my own point of view, really.
Far back in 2018 through 2019, we set up a site that was supposed to be paying Africans.
I wouldn't mention the site, but paying Africans for some form of, let's say, like a five-bar kind of site.
And the problem we really faced was this particular inter-border payments.
I remember, obviously, I was in the UK at that point.
And then we were trying to pay some people in Cameroon.
And I went to my friend that was doing payment service for Cameroon.
And I told him, please, what's the best way to pay people in Cameroon without actually, you know, using world remits was quite popular then.
And Azimo in the UK to transfer money.
And then we wanted to pay $20, but the fee on the $20 was $7.
So, it was not really possible to run a business in terms of transferring money to people in Africa, really, if you wanted to.
Maybe a couple of them, but the fees coming from outside are just too much.
And then I got to find out through that process that there are a lot of African countries that don't even have a bank account.
They use mobile money or what they call mobile pay.
So, it means that if you want to do business in Cameroon, Gabon, and some countries where 90 or 70 or 80% of their population are using mobile money,
and you are not a citizen of that country, that, you know, you can have a mobile phone there or you can just walk there and get a mobile phone.
It means, in reality, they are cut off from the world in terms of payment.
So, I got to find out that my friend that was moving, I asked him, how do you move your money to Cameroon then?
He has to change it to Bitcoin first, buy Bitcoin from Coinbase or anywhere, then send it to Cameroon.
Then somebody will now take that Bitcoin, sell it again, then now be able to make payment.
So, I know, obviously, the Bitcoin part is simple to do, but when you look at the overhead it takes just to transfer money, and anytime you are transferring, you know, the market could go up or go down.
So, it's just a lot of work to work with Africa, and payment is the foundation of everything.
If we are going to have, you know, an intercontinental, anything to build, we have to fix the payment problem.
And I don't know, but from my opinion, I think, you know, the political class are not really bothered about how to have like a one currency for Africa or something that can make ease of business easy.
And even I watched a program where Dangute was speaking about the same issue that he faces going through the border for a cement plant.
So, everybody feels it, both the big man and the small person.
So, I believe it's currently, if I'm permitted to say, a nightmare to do business in Africa.
And these are not even countries that are the, you know, smaller unknowns.
Cameroon is quite popular because they have, you know, these kickboxing guys, they are good in football and a lot of things.
So, they still have Western exposure.
But if countries like that, you know, it's impossible to do business with them, how much more of the very small ones that nobody even knows about?
And then the fees, when you look at the fees, it's basically almost impossible to conduct inter-border solution because of the fees.
The fees are ridiculously high, and it's just going to frustrate you out of business, really, if you are a small company and you don't have a lot of money to throw around.
And when we are talking of, you know, connecting Africa, making everything seamless, I don't think we can really get far if you have to pay $7 because you want to credit somebody, $10.
And thinking of it from African context, $10 could be at least a day saver for them to get food or food supplies or, you know, sanitary or anything really.
But in order to transfer that money to that person that needs it, you have to pay an enormous amount of fees.
So, I think there is a lot of work to do.
And the traditional systems like the banks that we have, you know, they have to set up the buildings, they have to get all the fintech licenses, and it just makes it very difficult for them as well.
I'm sure they are trying to scale through.
So, I had a look at Flutterwave, you know, for the last week.
I was thinking they would be in like 20 countries, but I think they only cover five.
And it's like the five main ones, Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, and two others, Kenya, I think.
So, how about the other 50, maybe 51 or 50 that are left, you know?
Are they left out of the dark?
Or how do we work with these people because these people are talented?
So, yes.
Back to your question.
In my personal experience, the current situation we have in Africa makes it basically impossible to do business.
And every country just has to exist on their own.
And the current solution, which is why fintechs or even platforms like PayPal cannot work with Africa because it's difficult to pay.
They can work with maybe one or two.
But in terms of the maybe 30 of them, it's almost impossible to actually work with them because the infrastructure is not just there.
And I don't think the political class is focused on that yet.
So, that's my experience so far.
Yeah.
I mean, I totally agree with all you have said.
If Tim could speak, I know that he also has so many stories to tell.
Yeah.
I think like sometimes the fact that I can get something or like I can buy something from Amazon quickly.
Yeah.
And also, you know, be able to pay.
I know that my stuff will get delivered, but I can't do that within Ghana.
It's very, it's very weird to me.
And it does my head in sometimes like these people are closer to me, but for some reason, I can't, I can't like transact with them or something.
And that's just like even a tip of the heart of the iceberg when it comes to cross-border payments.
I can't pay for my Apple music.
I think recently we're having issues with, we're having issues with like paying for like our podcast to lean on all of those things.
There are just so many layers to the problems that's, um, and that's why I'm actually excited also that like you guys are here to share with us exactly.
Um, but, well, so I would also like to know like exactly how like African is like tapping into that problem or that specific program nation like solving it.
Um, okay, I guess this question is for me to answer or, you know, this discussion, this part of the discussion.
Um, you've mentioned few things that are very important.
You can't pay for your, your, some of the subscriptions aside from even Amazon shopping, which Amazon is a big deal all over the world, at least all over the West, really.
And some parts of Africa and I think most parts of Asia.
So, um, being caught off from, from Amazon, where is the global markets is not really, it's, it just isolates us as a people and makes us, we can't have, we can't, we can't get what we need if we need it just because of the payments.
So, um, one of the core things, um, where we are trying to do or we are doing is a very long term thing.
It's not a, it's not a one year thing.
It's not a two year thing, but we want to create an alternate reality for us.
So just as you have Apple music that only accepts payment and we know our continent is not there yet to, to help.
And, you know, when we look at, you know, the light, the, the, the internet fraud, again, a lot of these countries don't just want to deal with us.
They are just too skeptical. If you take your bank statement, I'm Nigerian and you know, sometimes we want, we do business in the West and then we want to do something.
But just for the fact that you are Nigerian is already bad and they don't want to risk it.
They don't know enough to, for you to convince them that, oh, I'm good or, oh, I'm bad.
They just see you and blanket you and say, no, we can't do, we can't do any business with you just because of where you are coming from.
So we, we kind of either sit down and the, the options are, are limited really.
We sit down, we complain about it and we wait for the government to one day fix it for us.
And, you know, redeem our image so that, you know, people like, you know, when they were talking of cutting Russia off, is it swift or so,
will be able to accept our continent or we start building the world we want to see.
That is, those are the solutions that we have.
I don't see any other solution, you know, because when you talk of monetary policies, it's the government has to be in full support of it.
So we at Afroconomy are trying to take the bull by the own and start building what we need.
So having an alternate streaming service, for example, is one of the things.
So we want to rebuild the world where possible to be able to facilitate payments using Web3 solutions.
Any service, anything at all, there should be a proper Web3 solution for it.
And hopefully, with time, as we start going along, companies will now start working with us directly to offer these services as well for people that are not just reaching.
Because we don't want to be cut off.
Staying in the West for quite a number of years, over a decade now, I look to relocate home.
So, is it possible at this point, without feeling isolated, is it possible?
Possibly not, because my whole world has been built around this, you know, this system.
So, if I want to come home back home, I would need to have access to certain things.
And those things are not available or based on some payment network and some frustrations.
I won't be able to get that.
So our plan is, or our long-term plan, is to start having, start building these things gradually.
Start having marketplaces that run fully and are functional, not just setting up a, you know, a quick, quick cash out marketplace.
Having an alternate Amazon that can deliver services, but can run on Web3.
And there are so many products.
For example, a traditional bank will not give you finance.
But we have people that are willing to actually build up their credit score and actually be able to access,
oh, I need a quick $2,000, I'm working, my salary is coming end of month.
It's never easy, you know, in Africa, based off a lot of issues.
But can that be possible on Web3?
Can we start building this data of trust, of trusted people, building a network and an ecosystem,
of people who want to transact inter-border, want to pay for a service?
I guess somebody in maybe Bonswana can do a logo, but I can never pay him.
And he could do it for a very affordable price and that money that I could pay him,
maybe $3, maybe $5, could be what he would use to feed his child the next day or, you know,
pay his school fees.
Well, I can never reach him because there is possibly if I take, there may be nothing there to reach that person there,
to make that payment to that person.
So our vision is not to complain, but the Afroconomy spirit is to start building the African economy where we can, how we can.
And then, you know, with the help of the community and the whole, you know, the whole Africa behind us, we can achieve these kind of results.
So that is the long story short.
Yeah, that was actually really detailed, but I think there was a part of the conversation that stuck to me.
You were talking about like building like a stack of solutions or what I call them.
Yeah, a stack of solutions.
Do you mind like touching on them?
And I think just like helping listeners who are in here like connects exactly, you know, how Afroconomy just like spreads across that.
Okay.
So my or our focus really in Afroconomy is to start with skilled or intellectual owned services.
To focus on people that are creative, because that's one thing I can beat my chest to that Africans have a lot of.
We have a lot of creative.
See our music industry, although most of the of the influence is coming from still coming from outside.
But the push, you know, is pushed organically by the people that make it big.
But the funds have to come from outside.
So they have to do more international shows than local shows because of.
So when we look at a few industries that have had direct that have had the spotlight on them, you can understand how creative we as Africans are naturally.
And it's easy to be creative as an African person.
I don't know.
We are born with it, sort of, I would say.
So our services, usually, we are starting with those people that can already deliver service and don't have a cut off.
While, you know, in future, we can progress to people that want to get on board, you know, and learn something.
So our first product which we wrote out was Afroconomy Books.
Barbara is on the call, I believe.
And he wrote our first book, which is Wahala Bilai Bicycle.
This is a book that was coined out from my alma mater or our alma mater, which was a military school or which is a military school.
And this book is set in that scene.
But being a seasoned writer, I know back in the day, he has asked me to try and get his book on Amazon and payment and, you know, sorting out the whole rudiment.
So we decided to go on this journey of writing this book.
And then he wrote a masterpiece of a book which is available, obviously, on our book app.
But there are other creative writers as well, stories that have not been had, you know, all over Africa.
You know, the stories my dad used to tell me that are nowhere.
Nobody's reading them.
We are only reading foreign books, which is not.
They're not bad.
They are good books.
But we wanted to start giving exposure to our own local content across the globe.
You know, everywhere in the world, they should be able to read original authors from Africa.
What are they saying?
What kind of stories are coming from this region?
Because it's very different from the stories you get in the West, because we have, you know, two different worlds.
We are living in two different worlds.
We have different experience from the Western experience.
So while my dad could tell me about the spirit and this, you may not really get those kind of contents yet,
because they are in terms of, you know, cultural is different.
So we are, we worked on the Afroconomy Books app.
And then we looked at them for content creation, people that can help digital marketing, the workforce, Afroconomy workforce, where they can help to, you know, promote and put the power of the people really, which is, we have strength in numbers.
We are young, we are very, you know, internet savvy in our country, so in our continent, really.
So to take that into as a product so that people can help you build your brands as you go along, and in return can get some stipend of, you know, brand building with you.
So we are targeting mostly creatives or things that are readily available that people are there to do, to get started on those kind of tools.
So just small, small utilities there and there, here and there, like the books, the polls, Afroconomy polls, then the workforce, and then just gradually building up that stack.
And obviously our pay, Afroconomy pay solution, I wouldn't say it's a, it's not a utility on its own, but it's what helps manage the fund.
So everything is transparent with, I think, basically 0% human interaction, really.
So you, it's what you can see how much you've earned, how much, you know, is, you can request to be pushed to you anywhere in the world, by the power of Web3, and it will be pushed to you and you can do whatever you want to do with that.
So, yes, but the fundamentals are very massive, you know, it's a massive chunk of work that we've been building, but in the nearest future, or in the nearest few months, these things will begin to take shape, to start, you know, making the, the wave it is meant to make.
So, yeah, those are a few of our utilities that I've mentioned, but there are more, and there are more coming up, you know, every month we are busy building something, something new, and something for the community.
Yeah, thank you, thank you for the overview, but I'm also curious, in your opinion, or could I say, or would I say that the team's opinion, like, which of these tools do you think has, like, made the most impact so far, especially, like, within the African market?
I would say it's the book still now.
When we started the book, we only had one book, you know, but now we have about 100, and we did the writing competition.
I don't know if Barbara is still here to maybe speak on that.
I'll pass it over to him now, but we did the writing competition, we got so many authors signing up for their book to be on the platform, and then the authors are now earning money, you know, gradually, small, small money here and there, or at least they have a platform for them.
And it was just, it's just, rather than the money they are earning, it was just interesting for me, as a tech person, to actually see this amount of creative people that didn't know where to post their books, that they're actually there.
People have written manuscripts years ago, and they didn't have any avenue of how to reach, you know, reach the world.
So, I think, to me, that's still the most impressive.
But in the future, the one I'm looking forward to is the workforce.
Because that has the, my target, personally, that I will be satisfied, is 10,000 people at the end of a year can earn money via Afro-economy.
That's my target.
When I get there, I'll thank God for that.
You know, but having a product that people can wake up from home on their mobile phones, using the same data they use to comment on InstaBlog or, you know, GizLover,
and can do some quick work and can earn some money in return, all around the African setting, I think I will be satisfied at that point.
So, for me, that's the product I'm really looking forward to.
Because that product cuts across both the skilled or the writer or the artist, you know, and anybody can, or anybody that can use the phone and understand how the internet works can actually get something from that tool.
But I'll pass to Babri.
Maybe, is he still here?
Okay, yes.
Maybe he has something to say about the book, since I've mentioned the books a lot.
Hi, Babri.
I will send you, I've sent you a speaker in advance.
But, yeah, I think while you take your time to come up.
I do have one last question specifically for Dr. Faye.
And I think it's mostly around, mostly around initiatives.
Just, like, first off, are there, like, any, are there other initiatives that, like, the team is working on?
And then the second one is the challenges that, like, you face.
We specifically, you know, building and, like, providing solutions for the African markets.
Yes, we do, you know, we have a lot.
I think most of the programmers are on this as well.
And then shout out to them.
They do excellently well.
We burn midnight candles most days, just trying to get the basics right.
We are looking, like, we look forward to a lot of things.
But one of the key things for me as a person is I run a tech company in the U.K.
And a lot of the, you know, most of the, they are actually outside the U.K.
But I would like to get people on our team from not just, you know, where we can pay, but where we can't pay as well.
And that's one of my visions, personally.
I want to be able to, you know, get somebody from Cameroon on the team, somebody from Gabon that is skilled on the team.
I don't want to only look at a particular sector of a particular country or two or three countries to recruit from.
And then, but I know I can't pay those people, so it's kind of difficult to pay them.
So our Afro-Column Pay Solution, one of the niche we are working on is the business payments.
Where we can do, like, you know, what they call airdrop.
Well, I just call it batch payment, really.
You know, using crypto to standardize airdrop for anybody, any business, any individual that wants to pay one million people.
It can be facilitated with just one click of a button, really.
Obviously, security is a big challenge, which we've tried to make sure security is top priority for our systems.
But that is one product that I look forward to, which is our business payment solution, which will really, really empower people.
And it will make funds be able to move from either employer to employee or from one business or one service to the other, really.
And, yes, the AFC, which is our Afro-Column coin, is used in this regard to, you know, test run this market and go towards this market.
But in future, we're looking at things like stablecoin.
We're looking at things like having our own equivalent of Binance, basically, Binance platform.
You know, and, yes, we have a lot, really, that is in our minds, is all planned out.
We're just building.
So, secondly, the challenge we, I think, have faced, personally, is that our buying power in Africa is very low,
which is possibly why a lot of people don't really want to set up, you know, big businesses or standard businesses in Africa,
because you have to really reduce your price.
And then when you look at the cost, for example, of running a website, a standard website like ours that have to support a lot of people over time,
at least that's the plan, when you look at that, you're always going to be paying in dollars.
So, costing your product to be able to serve the African market means that you have to do a lot of subsidizing on your end as a company,
which is one of the things, challenges we face.
But we hope in the nearest future, you know, there will be more jobs and more people leveraging on Africa and for jobs,
for outsourcing and different things, where people can have much more buying power to afford to pay, you know, global price,
really, there's like a global price of how much a server will cost, averagely.
So, when you look at what you get back as a company, sometimes it's not really, you know, it doesn't really match up.
So, currently, obviously, we do a lot of subsidizing of everything we offer.
And then because we understand that people in Africa may not be able to afford $5 every month to, you know, they can.
But when we want the content, what we are trying to sell is something that works for a lot of people,
not just a few elites. So, when you look at that, we kind of understand that a lot of people that are interested in our products
are even students, you know, young people that want to read and they all just want to use some of our services.
So, costing is one of the things because when I say costing, I mean from the tech point of view to get our infrastructure set up,
our developers, you know, we still need to pay.
And so, that's, to me, that's the major challenge.
And I would say, you know, online business is not really easy.
There are a lot of issues that you face day to day when you build up any online tool, really,
which security is one of them.
So, you can't cut corners because you have to prioritize your customer-based security.
So, those are the challenges that we face.
And we work on tight deadlines, you know, because we are trying to get these things sooner than later.
So, yes, I think those are the major challenges that I face personally.
I think the business generally face.
I don't think it's isolated to our business, but general businesses we face trying to do a global business
that focuses on Africa.
Yeah, I think, to be honest, that really checks out across, you know, many of the builders
within this market and also within the climate.
So, one last question before I open up to the audience for their questions is how, like,
in what ways can, you know, members or even, you know, those outside of our economy itself,
you know, supports the mission or, like, help push the mission?
It's just like, yeah, just like a call to action for folks in here.
Okay.
I think Ryan will also like to speak on this.
But from my own point of view, what we are building, we call it a community project.
And it's not possible for me to stand the test of time without the people, really.
It's all centered around the people.
You know, it's an alternative business structure.
So, a normal business is set up just to make profits with a few shareholders at the top.
However, our structure is like a normal business structure is like a triangle.
The top, the team part is where the stakeholders are, maybe 5, 10 board members, and they make
all the money.
But ours is when we flip, when you flip the triangle upside down.
So, the people that are involved in the products or, you know, the shareholders are more of
the lesser part, whereas the wealth is distributed to majority of the people.
So, that is our structure.
That's what we are operating on.
And then we need community support.
We need them to follow us on our channels.
When we roll out our products, like the workforce that they can earn from, we need them to use
the products, to give feedback, you know, you know, feedback that can help us grow.
And, you know, just really, I think that's the center point, really, the community.
Without the people of Africa using the product, it could be a fantastic product, a well-designed
product, but it really won't matter because it doesn't really matter if we just sit down
here and make all the money and then the people are not making anything from it.
So, it's the support, our Telegram, our Twitter, our Facebook, and, you know, just that's what
I think the people can help us with, how they can support us and just, you know, retweeting
and believing in us that, you know, we are here for a long, long, long duration.
And while this is of your question, you know, it does, obviously, being in them, watching
the news over time and sometimes you hear good concepts that come out and then you hear
about, you know, the director has run away, you know, those things do affect mentally.
You know that, wow.
So, you know, just getting them to trust a brand that is not everything that is going
to be bad, something can work.
And, you know, just believing in that one brand that they can know that I can go to sleep
and I will wake up and these people are accountable and they are, you know, they are there for us.
So, that is, that is what, how we want them to feel at Afroconum.
We want everybody to feel involved and we want to grow a real big, massive African community
that can actually do business from one country to the, you know, to the farthest country in
Africa and their services or their goods can arrive, can be returned, you know, and customer
satisfaction is prioritized over everything else.
Just like Jeff Bezos would say, focus on the customers, you know, and just giving them
that kind of service that they can trust, really.
So, yes, that's, that's it really for me.
I don't know if Ryan or Babri will, you know, want to add to that or speak on the book as well.
I don't really have much to add because you've pretty much wrapped up the question she asked,
the last question she asked in regards to what we expect the audience to do or our audience
to do or how they can help.
Like, community is the basic, is the lifeline of every project, especially when cryptocurrency
is involved.
So, I think you've pretty, I've said everything.
I don't need to say much again.
Awesome.
So, I will leave the space open for questions.
So, if you have questions, you can actually request to come up or request for the mic and
I will bring you up any, I'm not seeing any requests.
Hi, no questions for Dr. Faye or the African-American, okay, I think has questions.
Hi, Tink, welcome, welcome, welcome.
I'm going to mute myself now so you can ask your questions.
Tink, are you still here?
Hello, mic check.
Okay, I hear you.
Okay, thank you very much.
A very interesting and insightful conversation.
My first question is to Oka and Ferdini.
Have you come across any regulatory roadblock?
If yes, how are you or have you navigated it?
So far, so good.
We have not come across anyone, but we know it's only a matter of time.
You know, once you get big, the spotlight is on you, really.
Like, you know, Binance and all these crypto companies that have come under the light, you
know, in a few years or this year, really.
So, so far, we are still very small and we've not had any reasons to, for the spotlight to
be turned on us.
And, but, you know, we know if we do, you know, get to where we are hoping to get to.
So, hopefully, we will have some blockers.
It's inevitable in any business you do, really.
And mostly tax compliance.
But we are into this space because we know crypto regulation is a bit difficult around
the world to standardize.
And because standardizing it requires that the government take some steps that they don't
necessarily want to take, you know.
So, we are not yet, we are not yet at that point.
But hopefully, you know, we don't get there at, you know, the nearest future.
But we are looking forward to, you know, those kind of things can, will happen.
So, it's just a matter of size and turnover, really.
And then the government will come for you, like any business.
So, yes, it's good for now.
I hope that has answered your question.
So, thank you.
My next question is, you started strongly on the need to solve the cross-border payment
failures in Africa.
And your project already has a token.
So, I'm keen on how you are specifically solving that problem.
Okay.
That problem is being solved in two words, as I would say.
No, two words, really.
Afroconomy, pay.
So, Afroconomy has one word and the pay has the second word.
So, Afroconomy Pay is a fancy name.
You know, I like, you know, having fancy names around things, at least names that people can
relate to.
But, I mean, in a nutshell, what Afroconomy Pay is, is a bank.
It's just a bank solution that has been built.
So, we understand that finance is the core of everything.
You know, the economy, the country is going to go down the drain if the currency is bad.
And so, we realize that.
So, what we have done is, let's say we've taken GT Bank or, you know, HSBC, wherever, I don't know where you are in the world, or what banks they use there.
So, let's just say Barclays Bank, and we've tried to rebuild similar infrastructure into our system in terms of sending money to people, doing scheduling payments to people, receiving funds, it reflecting in a way that, you know, it's not like a BSE scan page.
That is a bit very confusing sometimes, so to look for things.
And just giving it that final touch that it needs to be able to serve in a commercial use.
So, that solution, while it is simple, because there's nothing, you know, when we look at it, it's just a banking solution.
But giving it the aesthetic it needs, so that people that are coming from the non-crypto world, that wants to use, you know, use cryptocurrency to facilitate business, transborder, can feel familiar that, oh, okay, this interface makes sense.
I've seen it on my bank before.
I understand when I see transaction ID, when I see this, when I see that, I can easily just track it from this dashboard.
So, that is what will help us solve the problem.
First of all, you know, encapsulating all the Web3 jargons away from the people that are actually trying to get on board and just see things in a way that makes sense.
And adding more, or making it easier for people to do batch payments, which is, you know, which is what I think.
Because currently, as they asked earlier, one of the challenges we face is when you work with Web3 as a developer, it's very bad.
Bad documentation in terms of, you know, how to use this product.
So, I think it does reflect why most of the interfaces that we see are just done anyhow.
But when you solve that problem, and you try, and so we have been able to take this problem, find the fix, sat down days, just figuring out a bug, because we can't find answers anywhere.
Okay, and we finally solved it.
So, we've taken all those solutions now and wrapped it under one platform.
So, when you want to look for how to do airdrop, you don't need to go and go to Google and look for five places.
You go to one place, you know, they can do everything that involves a token.
You know, it can be done from one place.
And it can be done with a simple UI that is designed by people that have worked with businesses that understand that, okay, you know, UI, UX is very important.
User experience, user flow.
And, yes, so that product is what we will leverage on.
And then coming soon, there is a betting platform that is going to use our payment solution.
And the betting platform is really going to, you know, show people that, as a business, you can actually use Web3 without getting involved with so much code, so much setting up a full tech house just to figure out how Web3 works and how to verify transactions and how to do batch payments.
And you can just get your business to accept or to receive and to send, you know, crypto payments anywhere in the world, really, not just limited to Africa.
So, yes, so that solution in two words, Afroeconomy Pay is the solution that will help make that process easier.
And then, obviously, on our site, when you go to our site, you'll see the pay icon, which you can just play with it and see what more information about it.
Yeah, so I'm still on the issue of trying to, you know, build custom solutions to solve this problem.
So, you did use, you did cite a typical example where you said it involved a lot of process where, for example, you can use the Bitcoin network.
But before you do that, you would have to convert your local currency to Bitcoin.
And then once you send Bitcoin to the receiver, the receiver would have to off-ramp it, so on-ramping and off-ramping.
And you indicated that they would, like, it's not convenient, the interface is a bit cluttered.
And so, could you walk us through specifically how Afroeconomy solves this?
What is, take care of sender and a receiver, how does Afroeconomy makes it easier to achieve better cross-border payment standards?
Okay. So, with regards to Afroeconomy, so once you sign up on Afroeconomy, you'll have an Afroeconomy wallet ID, which will be given to you,
which you can use, you know, to send money via the Afroeconomy system to anybody anywhere en masse, still retaining your privacy.
There are some parts of it yet that we've not dabbled into.
So, for the purpose of transparency, so, for example, we are not at the stage yet where we are touching fiat.
We are not yet touching fiat.
And that is because of the regulations that it begins to come with.
But, so, that process is still very much same, how to get your Bitcoin into, you know, your crypto.
But, what we are trying to do at the moment is in the pipeline, we are working on it, is the peer-to-peer network,
which will enable transactions, though it's not still seamless, you know, as just going to Coinbase or Binance.
But, it will enable you to be able to purchase, you know, something dedicated for it.
But then, at least we are not, just because of our regulation issues, we are not going to be directly involved with the transaction.
So, I hope it clarifies or does it answer.
If not, I can obviously recap again on maybe outside better.
Yeah, I'm very interested in not, like, in us as builders not overcomplicating the solutions that we build
in trying to simplify and make things easier, right?
From the discussion so far, like, the problem still persists because there are no fiat involved.
And so, in fact, there is more levels now because I would have to get, your economy is facilitated by the Afro-economy coin.
Is that correct?
Yes.
Exactly.
And this coin, for me to send or for me to initiate transaction to anyone, I would have to have access to the coin and then send the coin rather.
Is that correct?
Yes.
So, what that means is that now I have to unwrap, that is maybe get Bitcoin or Binance.
It's on the Binance matching, so maybe get Binance.
Before I'll get access to your coin, before I can initiate the transaction again.
So, this is like, it is more layered to even the normal solutions that we have currently.
Yes, but what I can guarantee you, if I'm allowed to, is that it is a long journey.
It's not a one-day journey.
And then, with the right community using our product, very soon, we can get to the point of Binance, where things are a bit easy.
The issues I have faced with Binance, first of all, I don't like their interface, personally.
But their interface may be nice to some other people.
But the thing with Binance is, once you get to that level and you are regulated, then things get easier to do.
So, because we are not touching fiat, there is so much we can do to solve that particular problem.
But in the nearest future, it's all in our plan.
But it's, you know, it's a step at a time.
We have to finish phase one before we can get into phase two.
So, while we are on, you know, PancakeSwap and you can easily get it or get Binance and use our network, use any tool on our network,
we are not fully at that point where we are like a Binance yet.
But we do know that we need to get there because our aim is to make the whole process end-to-end from point A to point Z as simple as possible.
But we are still too early into the process to get most of what we need to get the job done.
And which is why we always say, you know, with the community behind us, we can actually get there faster.
If they see the vision and they see what we're building and they trust the brand, then it's easier to get there faster.
But we are not there yet.
And we can't, obviously, we can't say we are there yet because it's still a process or few processes that we need to touch.
But within our ecosystem, for the things that we have capacity for, we have made it as seamless as possible.
Okay, thank you.
I believe that it's worth the try and we need more Africans or more African builders exploring and experimenting.
That is the only way we get solutions to our problems.
So kudos to you and your team for trying to, you know, build something to solve one of the biggest challenges in Africa.
The time is almost over.
So over to you, Bangladesh, Abedema.
Yeah, so I think I would leave the space if anyone else has one more question.
And if not, we can wrap up today and go because I think hogged all of the question time.
Okay, let me just quickly add to what Dr. Fendt talked about lastly.
The Afroconomy pay as well for, I don't know, because I didn't really get fully what I think the question was.
So I'm just going to throw a little bit of more light into Afroconomy pay.
Okay, now, aside what Dr. has said, we want to make Afroconomy pay possible for P2P transactions.
So that, let me say, if we are able to get at least a merchant in a country where the merchant gets KYC with us
and we get to know, we've got to have full details about that person, we can actually have a merchant MOU with that person.
Where the person is going to have, be, okay, let me say, the only person on Afroconomy pay
who can actually do P2P transactions for our users in Ghana or for our users in Cameroon.
So, in as much as we are looking at having a more competitive platform, like the likes of Binance and KuCoin and the rest,
we are still trying very hard to make sure that we provide those solutions that are already on those platforms,
even from this little beginning where we are right now.
But the issue is, just like what Dr. said, the issue is trust and getting the right community to come on the platform and use these products we have.
I don't, I believe I have been able to add a little bit of more light to what I think Mr. Tink just asked.
Yeah, thanks for that.
Thanks for the, for more clarity.
Yeah, so I, I, I think we are like four minutes.
We have spent like four more minutes on our lot of time today.
Thank you so much, everyone, for coming and shout out to the Afroconomy team, Dr. Faye and also Oger for sharing and also, you know, staying with us today.
I would implore folks who are in here to go follow Afroconomy and also, you know, get into their community, get plugged in.
And I think that's one of the best, or that's one of the best ways we can contribute towards the ecosystem by constantly supporting each other as, you know, as we explore.
And then we'll figure out how to solve our problems.
Join the Afroconomy community, learn to be helpful to the brand and also the products in general.
And also, yeah, follow them.
Thank you so much for coming, everyone.
And also follow us.
Listen to our podcast.
We also have a newsletter where we, where we, you know, talk about or like we educate folks around cryptocurrency, you know, Web3, being in DAOs and all of those other things.
Thank you so much, everyone, for coming today.
Have a great rest of your week or weekend.
Bye, guys.
Thank you for having me.
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