Applicant name: Felix Pago
Applicant Type: Private Company
Website: www.felixpago.com
Headquarter City: Miami
Headquarter Country: United States
Innovation Name:  Felix Pago
Innovation Type: Product
Category: Fintech Making a Difference
Status of Innovation: In-Market
Innovation Active Since: 02/01/2022

Innovation Description: Felix is a chat-based platform to enable Latinos in the US to send money abroad. We combine Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence to make a remittance as easy as sending a WhatsApp.

The product is simple: users reach out to us via WhatsApp and our chatbot takes the information of the transaction, all without the need of an app but with the human touch of a normal conversation and the convenience of a digital payment.

Behind the scenes, our natural language processing (NLP) and other artificial intelligence (AI) features simplify and automate transactions. If those automations don’t cover the need, the Félix Pago team steps in to help customers when they need a real person.

To move the money into Mexicans’ pockets, Félix Pago leverages cryptocurrencies to increase the efficiency of cross-border payments and lower the costs

Innovation Inspiration: One day in south Philadelphia, Manuel and Bernardo, Félix’ co-founders were talking with Leticia, a cleaning lady who had immigrated to the US many years ago from Mexico. She was sharing her frustration because it was late and the Western Union store was about to close. The pain of Leticia resonated with Manuel and Bernardo because they had gone through the frustrations of this archaic process for many years. They told Leticia not to worry and sent Leticia’s mom money instantly through a personal account. Boom! Felix Pago was born! At that moment, Manuel and Bernardo started a mission to create the best service for latinos to send money to loved ones.

After digging deeper into the industry numbers, they realized that the majority of over $120 billion sent every year from the US to Latin America is still sent in cash at stores. Even though there are a number of money transfer apps available, they still haven’t captured the trust of the Latinos in the US because they don’t speak to Mexican immigrants.

Who can benefit from your innovation most? We are mainly serving the over 60 million Hispanics in the US who collectively send over $120 billion to their families abroad. However, the beneficiaries of the remittances all across the region can also benefit from getting larger amounts of money because of how the senders save money to send more. We are focusing on the US to Mexico corridor as a first step. Then we intend to launch in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras in our second phase. Finally, we will dominate all Latam.

What are you most proud of about your innovation? Even though we just launched early this year, we have accomplished great milestones as of early October: we have sent over $1.7MM to beneficiaries all over Mexico, from over 1,400 customers all over the US, through more than 7,000 transactions

Additionally, we have achieved product market fit at a small scale, which is shown by our monthly recurring revenue retention rate of over 100%, and surveys with 98% of people saying they would be disappointed if they could no longer use Félix.

All this shows that our unique approach of combining the ease of use of WhatsApp with the warmth and conversational aspect of our service is helping us make great strides with the Latino population in the US. Something other digital products have not being able to achieve.

Why do you think you should win this category? We built the world’s first-ever AI-based platform to enable Latinos in the US to send money abroad. With just a few messages on WhatsApp users can send money instantly to bank accounts or thousands of cash pickup locations. The company is on a mission to make payments from the US to Latin America borderless, instant, in one text. No need to leave your house, download any apps, or pay excess fees.

Before Félix, Manuel had experience building many technology products from scratch and Bernardo had experience helping financial institutions to digitize their operations as well as actually building customer service operations. By combining their experience they have a built an innovative product that is disrupting the remittance industry.

Over 300 million remittance transactions still take place in stores, where our fellow Latinos are faced with high fees and an inconvenient process. We are making a difference by giving our users their money and time back so they can fulfill their own mission: to better care for their families.