With over 2Bn unbanked around the world, the need to alternative methods of financial access and inclusion that is cheaper, faster and safer is needed. With most of the lowest banked countries found in Africa and Asia, NanoBNK digital wallets is the solution to open the financial access corridor. Its special features like automated on boarding, micro-credit, and other features are specially developed for the unbanked. For the sophisticated market, NanoBNK digital wallet offers integration solution platforms, loyalty programs, cryptocurrency and many other features, matching your requirements. The digital wallet solutions extend from banking to Retail, Gaming and malls.
Financial Inclusion
Financial Inclusion Growing ranks of stakeholders, including governments, international bodies, non-governmental organizations, and commercial enterprises now recognize that the provision of financial products and services has historically excluded many of the world’s most vulnerable populations, in particular low-income individual and families, people facing fragile situations and small businesses. Not only has this exclusion threatened the personal wellbeing of individuals and households, but it has also impacted the robustness of healthy and sustainable economic growth. In response to this, these same stakeholders have taken up the cause of financial inclusion. The AMF and CGAP jointly define financial inclusion as “a state where individuals, including low-income people and companies, including the smallest ones, have access to and make use of a full range of formal quality financial services (payments, transfers, savings, credit, and insurance) offered in a responsible and sustainable way by a variety of providers operating in a suitable legal and regulatory environment.
How digital wallets fill the void
If someone needs bank-like services but does not want to work with a bank, digital wallets are a great alternative. Mainstream companies like American Express have moved into this area with products like Bluebird and Serve, and startups like Due have thrown their hat in the ring as well.
In many ways, digital wallets work like a bank account. You can store funds, make payments, and transfer to other financial accounts. In the case of Bluebird, you can even write checks!
Digital wallets look a lot like a regular checking account to outsiders, but there are some important technical differences between bank accounts and digital wallet accounts.
To the unbanked and underbanked, the differences don’t matter. They often don’t know or care about the services banks have to offer. But this keeps them from shopping at online destinations like Amazon where the could save a lot of money compared to the local store.
As more consumers can spend with their digital wallet with the same ease and convenience of a debit card, we are on track to solving this complex problem.
Rise of Digital Wallets and what they mean for the Fintech Industry
The FinTech industry has been witnessing continual innovations to not just prepare the industry for modern day users but also to bring all the traditional services that once called for a bank visit to now happen at the ease of mobile. The time when users had to pay a visit to their bank to transfer money, check their account balance, or even update their passbook to view recent transactions are long gone. With the inception of mobile banking domain, every little task that once happened within the four walls of a bank now happens between the four edges of a mobile screen — a hallmark of the FinTech Era. This FinTech Era has brought 24/7 access of financial services to consumers. This was earlier limited to just the banking hours. There are a number of services that have branched out in the finance industry with the advent of technology. Mobile banking and digital wallets are at the top of the list.
The concept behind digital wallets
Although not directly related to banking apps, digital wallet apps like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay are being downloaded and used to a much greater extent than their mobile banking counterparts.
This growth is visible from the growing user base of the wallet apps and how they use them. And the growth of digital wallets is a global trend. All mobile users making a transaction using their devices have the same story to share. In the United States alone, 57 percent of users (which amounts to 60 million people) have used a mobile wallet at least once.
Technologies behind a digital wallet application
1. Online payments
This feature is most important when we talk about a digital wallet app. The app will have to be connected with the third-party payment APIs such as Authorize.net or Braintree to make it possible for users to make payments through the wallet. But this is a core utility of a digital wallet app.
- Point-of-sale integration
Most of the modern day digital wallet apps have the functionality of enabling cross-platform payments. It means that the app, with the help of technologies such as RFID and NFC, makes it possible for the users to make contactless payments through their wallet app. Though not yet mainstream, this is extremely convenient and may soon become very popular.
3. Person-to-person payments
One of the technologies behind the success of digital wallets is peer-to-peer payment systems. The app should allow two users to send and receive money to each other. APIs from Braintree and Stripe are generally used by mobile app development companies to enable peer-to-peer payment functionality in the app.
4. QR codes
QR codes have become the modern name synonymous with digital wallets and mobile payments. An item carrying a QR code on top of it has become a common sight among a number of retail outlets around the globe. The technology gives a new meaning to the cashless and cardless payments economy. As for the integration part, the one library that developers swear upon is ZXing library, which is used for the creation and recording of the data.
