Applicant name: Félix Pago
Applicant type: Individual
Website: www.felixpago.com
Headquarter City: Miami
Headquarter Country: United States
Innovation Name: Felix Pago
Innovation Type: Product
Category: Innovation Remittance Solution
Status of Innovation: In-Market
Innovation Active Since: 06/01/2022
Demonstrate what technology your product has that is different from the market: Felix is a chat-based platform for Latinos in the US to send money abroad. We leverage AI and Blockchain to make remittances extremely easy and cheap. We emulate the human experience from traditional remittance stores via chat and offer the convenience of a digital payment so that users can finally migrate to digital channels.
Explain the functionality. Users contact Felix via WhatsApp where a conversational bot takes the remittance information. At the end they go to a checkout page to pay with debit card. The user doesn’t have to download any apps nor do they need to go to a store. They simply chat with us like they were chatting with their family.
Explain who followed your example and deployed the same technology and timeframes. Balam in Mexico is starting to build this technology
Do you know if this innovation is specific to only one market and which one? No, while we are hyper-focused in the Mexican immigrant demographic, WhatsApp is a tool used for immigrants from many countries around the world, especially in India.
Innovation Description. We leverage Artificial Intelligence that we connect to our WhatsApp line so that the information that the user inputs can be understood in any way it is written. After the user pays, we leverage Blockchain to move money between countries.
Do you know if this innovation is specific to only one market and which one? No, while we are hyper-focused in the Mexican immigrant demographic, WhatsApp is a tool used for immigrants from many countries around the world, especially in India
What was the inspiration for this innovation? When the founders were doing market research talking with potential users outside Western Union stores, we noticed the users would take a picture of the receipt and send it over WhatsApp to their family member. Their family member then takes the receipt and shows it to the teller in Mexico to pick up the cash as it contains the required transaction ID.
Who can benefit from your innovation most? Users that still trust the human interaction in the store, that don’t want to use digital application that they don’t trust. Instead they are looking for solutions that are extremely easy and tailored to their needs.
What are you most proud of about your innovation? That is a product that is specifically tailored to the needs and habits of my fellow Latin American immigrants. We do everything on WhatsApp: talk to family, conduct business, participate in the community, etc. It only makes sense that the most important financial transaction that these users perform can be done in the same platform.
Why do you think you should win this category? The remittances industry has evolved in big phases. The first one from Western Union and money orders, then came faxes, then innovators put phones in stores, then the digital revolution. Now it is the time for AI and Blockchain, and we are the pioneers in this regard.
TEAM MEMBERS
Full Name: Bernardo Garcia
Role: Co-Founder COO
LINKS
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