A new blockchain-based ecosystem is vowing to help 490 million unbanked and underbanked people across Southeast Asia access modern financial services.
According to TraXion, only 54 percent of adults in developing countries have access to a bank account. This is even more keenly felt in the Philippines, where 80 percent of families are unbanked or underbanked. Across the country, credit cards have a penetration rate of just 3 percent.
The platform is hoping to create “fair and easy access” to a suite of services including low-cost remittances, savings accounts, cashless payments, peer-to-peer lending and insurance. It believes that opening the door to regulated financial services has the potential to rescue up to $42 billion from what it calls “the grey market.”
TraXion says its token “brings the benefits of blockchain[1] to everyday people, without needing to understand the underlying technology.” It wants to provide a flawless service through channels that Filipinos are familiar with, meaning customers would not require any technical know-how to enjoy the full use of the platform.
A suite of six services
The company has broken down its offering into six different services — some of which are already up and running.
TraXionPay.com allows merchants to send and receive payments using 20 different methods. Meanwhile, the TraXion Wallet is designed to enable remittance payments and donations — enabling users to transfer cryptocurrencies and fiat money with ease. Some of the other services on offer include Azzurance — an insurance platform offering car, fire, property and travel insurance — and BayaniHealth — which provides “flexible, tier-based healthcare packages.” Rounding off the collection is GavaGives.com, which has been billed as “the Philippines’ most popular crowdfunding platform.”
Beta testing on its platform for payments and remittances is already under way, with the company adding, “We have up to
