We are proud to announce that Sendy, Spark's crypto powered remittance APP is now available for closed Beta testing! Read on for more.
Spark's Sendy App has been available in the Google Play store since late 2017. The Spark team has been working on a redesign which will be launched in replacement of the existing App as outlined in our roadmap.
About Sendy
Spark's goal has always been to provide access to alternative finance with cryptocurrency. Our strategy (accessible here) is to create an ecosystem free from banks and available to the unbanked, underbanked and so on. This is not an easy task however long ago Spark assessed that it wasn't enough to build a standalone APP or a standalone platform as what is really missing from the bank killer equation is an ecosystem that supports the needs of users from cash to digital interchangeably.
Sendy is a big component to the Spark vision and is not just 'another' App. This concept of not another 'insert product here' has been overused but let us tell you why in fact it is much more than what is seems.
For the financially underserved, accessibility to financial services is pretty dire. It involves many 'hacks' to do the simplest of things like storing, sending, receiving, loaning, earning or investing value. In fact, many use an ad hoc of solutions which are not ideal but serve its purpose in limited circumstances. Take for example an overseas foreign worker paid in cash, they would have to go to a money transfer operator to remit money to their family back home, perhaps go to an off the books money lender to borrow money for upfront capital to crowdfund an investment with friends based on a trust system. While this is not all cases, it certainly is the situation many unbanked face.
For more info on why globally 2 billion adults are unbanked, read this article by Forbes.
With Sendy, accessibility to the basics of finance is available with many additional features. It is an all in one financial App which is powered by Bitcoin (and soon Bitshares!) that gives the ability for users to send, receive, manage, store, earn, invest and be rewarded by doing so. How? Read on.
Many Apps for the unbanked don't work as the infrastructure to get the cash in and out of the App does not exist. For the unbanked, cash is king and is a considerable factor when users are deciding to use or not use a service. This is why money transfer operator networks are largely relied on when sending and receiving cross border transactions and Sendy is scaleable as it pivots on Spark's money transfer network as a deposit and withdraw infrastructure for cash based users. Since 2014, Spark has provided a remittance platform for money transfer operators with over 500K locations in our seven destination countries across Asia and Africa.
What are money transfer operators? Money transfer operators are businesses that support overseas cash transfers by accepting cash from a sender and dispersing cash to the designated receiver.
As storing, sending, receiving and managing transactions is a given, let's take a look at the unique features of Sendy which we're building in.
Ability To Earn
There are several ways users can make money by using Sendy including becoming a top up agent and/or liquidating balances of money transfer operators using Spark's remittance platform.
Opportunity 1
Sometimes there may not be a money transfer operator near by to add a balance to Sendy so the top up feature provides people with additional locations for people top up at. Anyone can become a top up agent with Sendy and earn extra income by providing a service to other Sendy users.
Opportunity 2
For local entrepreneurs who are looking to provide liquidation on a bigger scale, they can also use Sendy to buy and sell cash and digital balances from money transfer operators using the Spark system. Our money transfer operators sometimes have a till of cash which needs to be converted to a digital balance or a balance of BITUSD which needs to be exchanged for cash. Local entrepreneurs can charge a service fee in exchange for liquidating user accounts much like topping up but for businesses.
For more details about money transfer balance liquidation take a look at ZEPH whitepaper.
Ability To Invest
Those who invested in ZEPH will know this well but the idea behind ZEPH is that it is a rewards token for Spark's remittance network. The rewards program works by issuing ZEPH to our customers that use Spark. Whether it be sending money, topping up and whatever else, Spark will reward users ZEPH which they can keep in ZEPH or liquidate it for their next transfer. This provides an additional way for users to passively invest in ZEPH by doing what they do everyday!
Ability To Buy And Sell Crypto
Cryptocurrency will be the currency of the future and Spark wants to provide the bridge for users to buy and sell ZEPH, BTS, ETH and other currencies. With SENDY, the uberization of buying and selling crypto will be possible and the team is very excited to be able to drive the world towards crypto.
Sendy Progress Report
The team has been working on improving Sendy by improving better UX/UI flow for users. An intuitive design has been implemented for users to interact with SENDY including improved on-boarding and verification process, dashboard layout with smoother and goal orientated flows, simplified sending, receiving process and additional features like top up and referrals. A summarised report of some of the completed issues of Sprint 3 has been provided but not all pending or completed issues are made public.
Issue #1973 Notification page and flow regression
Issue #1907 Notification Page & flow
Issue #1936 Add status for Sendy according to history flow
Issue #1943 Sendy History Pages
Issue #1970 Adding list of status
Issue #1974 Bug Notification : deposit/withdraw after admin approval
Issue #1977 Closed Beta build preparation
Issue #1978 Top up agent approval and cancel on page
Issue #1979 Backend logic for App withdrawal flow
Issue #1982 Balance amounts rounding
Issue #1983 Design line up
Issue #1987 Top up agent notification replication
Am I Eligible?
While open beta of Sendy will be available as per the roadmap, Spark will be conducting a closed beta test. We welcome ZEPH investors who hodl >500K of $ZEPH and dedicated community pioneers who have been actively keeping tabs on ZEPH to participate in this closed beta testing.
If you meet the criteria above please send an email to info@bitspark.io for verification. After verification a test link will be provided with additional info!
Please note that the closed beta testing is only be available until July 1st.
What's Next?
Sendy is currently going through QA in preparation for Spark's next development sprint. Once its been through the process and some flows and bugs have been worked through SENDY beta will be made available through the Google Play store for download.
Questions? Let's talk!
Zeph chat: https://goo.gl/3nWRtc
Spark Twitter : https://goo.gl/cwvQbg
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