Applicant name: Uniteller
Applicant Type: Private Company
Website: www.uniteller.com
Headquarter City: Austin TX
Headquarter Country: United States
Innovation Name:  Digital Link | Remittance as a Service
Innovation Type: Service
Category: Digital Innovation
Status of Innovation: In-Market
Innovation Active Since: 04/01/2017

Innovation Description: Remittances play a significant role and are a major contributing factor to global economic growth. The role of remittances in economic development, especially in developing nations, cannot be undermined. Inflows form an integral part of overall capital inflows and for many countries, they make a notable contribution to overall GDP.

UniTeller, a pioneer of remittance and cross-border payment processing, empowers organizations to scale their businesses globally with a payments solution and platform designed for today’s consumers.

Our “Digital Remittances as a Service” is a flexible, end-to-end solution designed for businesses looking to enter the payments industry to seamlessly move funds across borders.

A simple plug-and-play integration to our APIs enables businesses to provide a comprehensive payment experience contained on one single platform managed and powered entirely by UniTeller.

With our Full Turnkey White Label Solutions, UniTeller’s objective is to provide the right infrastructure and ecosystem to support businesses worldwide so they are able to offer real-time and customized cross-border payment solutions to their customers and business partners by leveraging our licenses, extensive global paying network, and best-in-class compliance platform.

Innovation Inspiration: Over the years, the remittance industry has seen substantial digitalization along with several breakthrough innovations. While the emergence of digital solutions along with a recent increase in penetration of mobile wallets has helped improve overall financial inclusion and reach of modern remittances, providers continue to face challenges in scaling their operations and infrastructure development. They continue to experience multiple regulatory roadblocks as well as challenges when it comes to developing digital apps that meet the end users’ needs.

UniTeller’s Full Turnkey White Label Solutions allow businesses to offer real-time and customized cross-border payment solutions by leveraging UniTeller’s Licenses, a global paying network, and a best-in-class compliance platform. With our API integrations, businesses are not only able to save on resources and the infrastructure needed to develop integrations of their own but are also able to provide international remittance services to their customers with ease. As a result, our cutting-edge API digital solutions, with automated customer authentication, eKYC, and flexible integration, have truly come to the forefront of the remittance landscape.

Businesses that partner with UniTeller receive our Full Turnkey & Customized Digital Remittance Solution and the complete UniTeller experience which includes the following:

Development and Integration:

• Mobile App & website development is conducted by UniTeller. The digital app and website are designed and developed with a focus on not just function and features, but keeping in mind the end users’ needs. The user interface provides simplified and efficient user navigation and user experience.
• The mobile app is made available on IOS and Google Play Stores with complete app optimization so users are able to find and download the app with ease and are able to send money, pay bills and reload phones while they are on the go.
• The website is designed with a device-agnostic approach to provide a mobile responsive design and is optimized for keywords that help potential customers find the service at the time when they are looking for payment solutions.
• The partner’s brand and branding are featured in the forefront and given maximum exposure to ensure complete brand visibility with the remittance service Powered by UniTeller.
• A wallet and/or prepaid account enables customers to send remittances with preferred exchange rates and lower fees.

Value-added services:

• In addition to money transfers, businesses are able to offer cross-selling services such as international bill payments and instant prepaid phone reloads.
• UniTeller is the only organization providing service to support transactions to Mexican Fund Accounts (Afores) thereby allowing Mexican immigrants in the U.S. to contribute to long-term saving accounts that belong to them or their families.
• Integrated Compliance and Regulatory Services: With our Digital Remittances as a Service, companies can rely on UniTeller’s expertise and know-how.
• They get access to one of the most comprehensive payment networks globally.
• Integrated marketing promotions are injected into the mix to ensure the business partner’s products generate demand and remain competitive in the market. Custom promotions are designed for specific target audiences based on their customer journey with the brand. These range from flexible foreign exchange rates, discounted promo codes, seasonal promotions, referral programs, and new customer offer incentives to name a few.
• We extend comprehensive marketing and content creation support such as demographic research studies to define target audiences, paid social and paid search ad campaigns targeted to relevant ethnic immigrant audiences, content calendars for mobile push notifications, email marketing, social media management, and much more.

Foundation:

• Our API provides real-time transactions, tracking, and reporting of transactions.
• Businesses leverage UniTeller’s Money Transmitter Licenses in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.
• UniTeller is fully licensed as a Money Transmitter across the United States with Europe and Canada in the pipeline.
• Best-in-class Tier 1 and/or Tier 2 Customer Service with dedicated landlines along with our customer support staff that possess the knowledge and skills to handle every customer issue ranging from basic everyday to complex issues.
• Merchant Account Services (Collection of funds from the Remitter)
• UniTeller’s Compliance Program & Regulatory Expertise means we navigate the complexity of local compliance requirements, challenging regulations, and fiscal environments, all at our end.
• UniTeller’s uLinkcard Prepaid Mastercard® is a low-fee product for immigrant communities allowing them to send international money transfers with no fees and preferred exchange rates.
• UniTeller offers a Zero Fraud Guarantee, proving business partners the assurance that they will not be liable for any fraud that may exist. UniTeller uses a proprietary, internally developed risk framework that includes Machine Learning, AI models, and analytics to prevent fraud and account takeovers. A structured fraud risk assessment tailored to every partner’s organization size, complexity, and payout country is performed periodically. The assessments are then integrated with an overall organizational risk assessment that includes risk identification, risk likelihood, and risk response. Plus, our machine learning tool identifies patterns of each individual user and assesses the likelihood of risk. In addition, customer identification is one of the most critical aspects as a part of our due diligence process which involves each user’s identity being validated and verified via our KYC tools.

Who can benefit from your innovation most? Our robust, one-stop solution empowers fintechs, remittance companies, banks, financial institutions, MTOs, and retailers to provide B2C remittance services and enables them to expand their businesses in emerging markets.

Being a key processor for cross-border payments for some of the most renowned players in the industry including Western Union, Wells Fargo, Visa, MoneyGram, Walmart, and Remitly, UniTeller’s real-time cross-border payments is known to be the leading go-to Digital White Label Solutions by some of the largest international payers like Elektra, Bantrab, Banco Atlántida, and others.

Furthermore, our partners get access to a global cash pickup network spanning over 200,000 locations and more than 2,500 banks and mobile wallets in over 80 countries worldwide including the hard-to-reach emerging markets.

What are you most proud of about your innovation? UniTeller has developed and launched White Label and API Digital initiatives for some of the biggest players in the industry including Elektra, Bantrab, Bambu, Atlantida, MLhuillier, PAVMS +, Maya Remesas, Smart, Interbank, Brick and Mortar Agents, and more.

Digital Platform Results:

• A total of 12 brands have been onboarded in the past 3 years, including our own brand, uLink.
• Our digital brands have a proven track record growth of over 212% in signups and 154% YOY in transactions.
• 95% transaction approval rate with fraud rates below 0.10% of volume sent.

Why do you think you should win this category? UniTeller’s mission is to provide quality financial services that act as a bridge between immigrants and their loved ones in their home countries. The level of impact that our services have on our extended communities. The foundation of UniTeller is built on our core values as we strive to maintain the highest standards of service, honesty, respect, and corporate responsibility. These values represent standards of conduct that guide our actions and reflect our commitment to our customers, partners, employees, agents, and the communities in which we operate. We have been involved in financial literacy advocacy and the empowerment of minorities and communities in emerging markets. Our recent whitepaper, “Both Sides of the Coin”, researched behaviors and financial, emotional, and physical challenges facing migrant communities in Asia. At UniTeller, we are wholeheartedly committed to helping our communities in need. We consider it our responsibility to help support their growth and to promote the economic growth of the unbanked populations globally. With this in mind, we dedicate every effort to address the difficulties faced by underserved populations through our digital solutions and by partnering with businesses to help fill financial gaps in our societies at large.