"I am passionate about helping people that would be classified as disenfranchised both domestically and abroad. I wanted to help create solutions to some of the pressing problems that families face."
Eric Solis, Founder and CEO of MovoCash
Did you know that Sweden is one of the countries leading the way in the move to a cashless society? In 2018, it is estimated that only 1% of Sweden’s GDP was circulating in cash compared to 8% in the United States. A cashless society is something that has been talked about for a long time and yet, whilst the technology exists to leave cash behind once and for all, we’re still yet to fully embrace a cashless world.
Cash transactions were declining long before 2020. However, COVID-19 has accelerated that shift away from cash towards a ‘digital first’ model. However, unsurprisingly, fraudsters have been quick to take advantage of the situation, leaving unprepared financial institutions exposed - it is estimated that cyber-attacks against the financial sector rose by 238%.
With fraud occurring at an alarming rate and consumer demand for digital payment solutions increasing, the ability to provide secure and trusted digital payment solutions have now become a top priority for financial institutions. This is where a company called MovoCash could be a gamechanger in the Fintech industry. Founded in 2014, MovoCash, Inc. is a California-based mobile payments company that enables its customers to instantly send and spend money right from a mobile phone, even without a bank account. We spoke to Eric Solis, founder and CEO of MovoCash, to find out more.
“What MovoCash delivers to the world is a unique way to think about payments. Imagine you walk into a store where you can buy a card pre-loaded with $50. Well, instead of having to buy one off a rack, we’ve converted that 16 digit card number into the equivalent of a serial number on a dollar to allow you to send that digitally to anybody who accepts credit cards” explains Eric.
“So, here we are today with really what we think is a transformative way for people to think about payments, digital cash networks, digital cash channels and ways in which you can create streamlined ways to move money from point A to point B - not just from a consumer to a merchant or a person to person, but really creating a new form of network that allows cross-functional payments to take place” he explains.
For over 15 years, Eric Solis has been a key contributor to the advancement of digital payment technology. As founder and CEO of MovoCash, he has combined banking and blockchain technology to create a new form of a highly secure payment platform.
“I am passionate about helping people that would be classified as disenfranchised both domestically and abroad. Very early on, I wanted to help create solutions to some of the pressing problems that families face” explains Eric.
Fintechs such as MovoCash are employing innovative technologies that can help financial institutions offer safe digital payment solutions that are now needed as we all move ever closer to a fully cashless society. It is clear that new ideas and new standards around digital payments are needed in order to eliminate fraud and provide customers with a digital payment solution they can trust.
“We took that 16-digit number that everyone knows how to use on their credit and debit cards and turned that into a denomination of cash that you use digitally to pay for an item. It gives an individual the power to issue a debit or credit card in real time for the exact amount and only the amount you want a merchant to have –it’s a channel that’s been created for that amount of money and no more” explains Eric.
In many ways, it is the financial institutions themselves that are holding us back from moving to a fully cashless society. They have created complex and stringent requirements for opening bank accounts and, for those who are able to get credit cards, the fees for using them can be prohibitive. To create a truly cashless society, it seems that we ultimately need solutions that are freely and easily available to everyone.
“You need a bank account to move money from one person to another and for a credit card, you need a financial profile. So, we are excluding billions of people that need access to financial services and it’s getting harder and harder to live in the local economy” explains Eric.
“We need to solve the problem to create a digital cash solution that is as easy as me walking up to someone and giving them 20 dollars from my pocket. We haven’t got there yet, but I think MovoCash is closer than anything else in accomplishing that, even closer than Bitcoin. Bitcoin technology is phenomenal, but if anyone walked into a department store today and wanted to pay for an item with Bitcoin, they’d be told that they can’t do it. But walk in with MovoCash and you can pay for that item. So, we need to get all the friction out so we can get back to eliminating fees because fees are a barrier to entry for consumers” he continues.
The world is evolving and consumer demand for digital payment solutions is growing rapidly. In order for us to finally go fully cashless, we need trusted, secure digital cash solutions, free from fraud that will give us both quicker access to our money along with the freedom to use it any way we want and it is today’s fintech innovators such as MovoCash that are helping that to become a reality.
“We have ways to move money digitally via, blockchain, which I think is probably the future of ledger technologies. I think it will completely displace the old ways. We’re then able to start democratizing money in an amazing way.” concludes Eric.
