Fonbnk: Driving Financial Inclusion

Fonbnk has created a next-generation crypto wallet that enables a frictionless financial onramp for the emerging world. Our vision is to leverage the existing networks of mobile phone accounts, which enables unbanked and underutilized subscribers, women, and other vulnerable populations to unlock their potential. We provide a borderless banking infrastructure that uses mobile data as currency, enabling global transfers of value in increments as low as $0.01USD. Anyone with a prepaid mobile SIM card and a verified online identity can now have a global bank account for free. We are driving financial inclusion through digital access for the nearly 2-billion humans who are unbanked by service offerings spanning payments, lending, remittances, and savings, all of which occur in Fonbnk’s proprietary ecosystem. 

Fonbnk enables the friction-free movement of value for unbanked people globally using prepaid mobile data credits as a currency equivalent. The analog model would be a global version of Venmo (mPesa) using prepaid mobile airtime as its medium of exchange. The global banking system is broken with a high demand for digital transformation. There are 8 billion activated SIM cards globally, generating over $1trillion annually, while there are less than a few hundred million standard consumer bank accounts, resulting in a vast untapped financial network. Inequitable access structures cause billions of people to go without bank accounts. Holding and transacting small amounts of money is expensive for banks -- a cost which trickles down in the form of fees to businesses and consumers. This makes micro-banking unprofitable. 

Fonbnk offers a micro-banking system that allows mobile airtime credits to be traded, sold, and spent in increments as small as $0.01USD. These credits are tokenized and universally interoperable. Value can be instantly transferred anywhere in the world by utilizing the existing network of prepaid mobile SIM accounts, of which there are currently 8-billion active globally. We operate on a commission-based revenue system arranged with businesses and marketplaces instead of a percentage-per-transaction charge on the user end. Our unique product architecture drives marginal costs to near-zero by leveraging the free and highly secure Ethereum blockchain protocol. Service offerings span payments, lending, remittances, and savings, all of which occur in Fonbnk’s proprietary ecosystem using mobile data as a currency alternative. 

Furthermore, we offer our customers an opportunity to make additional earnings by becoming market makers on our platform. They can participate in our market and create returns by the liquidity amount they provide. It allows them to decrease and even eliminate their mobile phone bills while increasing their disposable income. By providing free 1 GB to our end users, we can improve the GDP per capita by 5% on average in the emerging countries.

As of 2020, 9 out of 10 people between the ages of 10 and 24 live in a developing country, and about 30% of the world’s young, poor, and unbanked people are among emerging market economies. Our micro-banking system benefits these populations by including them in the financial system without a bank account and enabling them to reduce their mobile phone bills. On a macro level, Fonbnk helps emerging countries to grow in an accelerated way.

Fonbnk intends to provide a micro-banking system to unbanked and un-/underemployed subscribers across the intended markets. The Company has b2b customers in the AI Data Labeling and Non-Governmental Organization segments which use Fonbnk as a 1-to-many remittance platform for micro-payments. These segments have become the predominant revenue-generating channels. Specifically, in the case of AI Data Labeling, the Company offers a powerful value proposition to consumers and microbusinesses. Fonbnk also facilitates payments for marketplaces.

As a mobile-first solution leverages the near-universal mobile telephony network, Fonbnk enables underrepresented populations typically living in rural locations, women, and other vulnerable peoples to unlock their potential by providing them free mobile access. The Company has a pivotal opportunity to provide uninterrupted access to the Internet in a transparent and user-centered way, ultimately creating a more inclusive model that will bring million, online. Our system allows anyone with a smartphone to reduce or even eliminate their mobile phone costs and increase their disposable income while accessing a borderless banking infrastructure.

The Company is at a stage of developing and implementing new products while testing the existing ones with 50,000+ subscribers across all leading African economies. The current phase allows us to explore and manage the risks of our organization while looking for new resources to invest in reporting the pilot stage with an early advanced statistical analysis and developing new additional software to prepare us for the growth phase.

Fonbnk provides free mobile access to un/underbanked mobile subscribers across emerging markets while offering additional service offerings, including payments, lending, remittances without any transaction fees. We provide a creative solution to these subscribers and microbusinesses and help these populations to thrive by increasing their disposable income. The average mobile subscriber spends ~$5.27 monthly on mobile access in Sub-Saharan Africa. Compared to the average monthly minimum wage of $85.27, this high cost prevents low-income individuals' access in the emerging world to their basic human rights. As Fonbnk, our goal is to lower the cost of internet and phone bills for the subscribers in these countries below the 2% threshold while increasing their disposable income and giving them greater accessibility. Participants in the Fonbnk microwork trials earned $5.00-10.00USD weekly, resulting in an annualized surplus exceeding $400USD or up to 6 years of their current annual mobile expenditure.

Since 2019, Fonbnk has enabled 50,000+ subscribers across all the leading African economies, with more than 90%+ from underserved communities and 38% women users. The number of subscribers has grown +100% month-over-month since 1Q2020. 

In the next 12 months, we expect to be serving at least 100,000 subscribers at 60-70% participation by women from underrepresented populations typically living in rural locations, women, and other vulnerable peoples by expanding partnerships to execute every aspect of its current product and growth strategy. We are currently working with over 600 mobile network operators globally (200 countries covering nearly 5 billion people).

The Alliance for Affordable Internet defines affordable internet as 1GB of mobile data costing no more than 2% of the average income. In comparison, in sub-Saharan Africa,1GB of mobile data costs the average person 5.7% of their monthly income. Fonbnk’s primary goal is to reduce the cost of internet and phone bills for the end-users in these countries below the 2% threshold while increasing their disposable income and giving them greater accessibility. On a macro level, we believe that our business plan will positively impact the GDP per capita in the emerging countries and allow them to grow in an accelerated way.

6 full-time employees are currently working on the solution team.

Fonbnk has an experienced and global executive team with extensive experience and in-depth knowledge in FinTech and Telecommunication in Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, South East Asia, and the United States markets.

The Founder & CEO Christian Duffus is a 3-X FinTech entrepreneur with nearly 20 years of experience in financial and wireless technology. The other co-founders have worked with Christian in a prior venture from inception to its sale. Finally, Christian Duffus started Fonbnk as part of a wager back in 2018. He began trading prepaid airtime in Kenya and subsequently re-invested the proceeds into the current venture across all leading African economies.

As a CEO and founder, Christian Duffus aspires to transform Fonbnk into the Visa or MasterCard of mobile access utilizing our unique distributed ledger solution, creating a seamless, ubiquitous quilt that drives a sustainable business model resulting in financial equity via digital inclusion for the most vulnerable of mankind. Demonstrating extensive experience in Impact, FinTech, and Wireless among leading global organizations that encompass every aspect of this current venture, I am confident that I know my unique products the best, truly understand my customers, and have a burning desire to make Fonbnk a great success.  

Fonbk is a company that understands the actual value of diverse leadership teams and their power to solve problems. We are proud to say that our solution team is composed of members from three different continents. Our head software developer is from India, the head of testing is from Nigeria, while the CEO & Founder of the Company is from the United States. We all work collectively and collaboratively to change inequitable access structures that cause billions of people to go without bank accounts. As a company that operates globally, we found that the greater the representation, the higher the likelihood of understanding different countries' business cultures.

We are excited about joining the MIT-backed network and Solve's community of peers, funders, and experts to advance our innovative work. Fonbnk would principally like to gain MIT’s support in gaining mentorship, technical expertise, and exposure to media, conference relating to our business area. Additionally, through Solve’s global network, we want to obtain access to other potential partners, leading multinational for-profit and NGO organizations that complement our business model. We desire to expand our network of mobile operators, micro-tasking providers all over the world. Given our ambitious goals to scaling in the next few years, Solve’s invaluable resources will be critical for achieving our strategic goals.

As Fonbnk, we need media and marketing-related support and partners to scale and reach the un/underbanked populations in the emerging markets we are not currently operating.

To reach strategic and financial goals, Fonbnk seeks partnerships with:

• Potential investors and capital venture to raise additional fundings in the next rounds

• MIT faculty to refine and innovate our products and services for our subscribers.

500 cross-sector leaders and entrepreneurs in SOLVE community to learn more about big data analytics and machine learning and AI testing services

As Fonbnk, our target population is the world’s unbanked citizens, including refugees. There are two billion unbanked people globally and eight billion activated sim cards, while one in five displaced people has access to a phone. People are heavily connected. Fonbnk removes barriers that have plagued people around the world for centuries. Our vision is to leverage the global network of eight billion activated SIM cards, which enables unbanked and underutilized subscribers, women, and other vulnerable populations to unlock their potential by accessing the financial services and trade airtime without friction, thus driving financial equity via digital inclusion; (i) access, (ii) earn, (iii) pay and (iv) save utilizing Fonbnk’s next-generation open-architecture platform. Our ultimate goal is to decrease and even eliminate the mobile phone costs of our end users while offering them greater accessibility to financial services. On a macro level, we envision that it will also increase the GDP per capita in the markets we operate by increasing the disposable income of our end users. 

We will use the prize to scale our unique product and expand in the rest of the emerging world to offer a solution to the un/underbanked people.

Access to mobile data in the 21st century is a basic human right. The cost of internet access is dropping globally but not equally in all the regions of the world. Based on the available data, the prices are not decreasing fast enough in the emerging countries as we see in the middle-income countries, which deepens the existing digital divide. Particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, the average monthly mobile data cost ranges between $3.86-$15.32, with an average of $5.27. Compared to the average monthly minimum wage of $87.67, this high cost prevents low-income individuals' access in the emerging world to their basic human right.

As a mobile-first solution, Fonbnk enables underrepresented populations in Sub-Saharan Africa to unlock their potential by providing them free mobile access. The Company has a key opportunity to provide uninterrupted access to the internet in a transparent and user-centered way, ultimately creating a more inclusive model that will bring millions, especially for women, rural populations, and people with limited income, online. With Fonbnk, anyone can identify several available micro tasks that require their relevant skills and work directly from home with their own mobile devices. We enable unbanked and underutilized prepaid mobile subscribers to make additional earnings by becoming participants in our marketplace. Fonbnk offers the market makers discounted or free airtime in return of liquidity and depth they provided.

We will use the prize to scale our unique product and expand in the rest of the emerging world to offer a solution to the un/underbanked people.

Fonbnk bridges the gap between women/girls and the digital world by using the power of social networking tools like messenger. We primarily focus on addressing the challenges preventing women from access to mobile internet, narrowing gender inequality by driving +50% (+12% improvement) of the adoption of the Fonbnk service by women in our intended markets. The funding is crucial for us since we plan to do this specifically by highlighting women’s participation in case studies, advertising, and outreach. Video tutorials and audio instructions could also be added to support women, especially anyone with lower literacy levels, to use our platform. These activities shall be orchestrated directly by Fonbnk and in conjunction with diversifying partner organizations; GSMA, MNOs, and select NGOs. Furthermore, we believe that our micro banking solution will help more women to be financially independent and encourage them to become entrepreneurs. 

Fonbnk intends to provide free mobile access to unbanked and un-/underemployed subscribers across the intended markets in exchange for performing small/micro-tasks using their existing mobile handsets. The Company has b2b customers in the AI Data Labeling and Non-Governmental Organization segments which use Fonbnk as a 1-to-many remittance platform for micro-payments. These segments have become the predominant revenue-generating channels. Specifically, in the case of AI Data Labeling, the Company offers a powerful value proposition to consumers, multiple working opportunities for unemployed subscribers, and Free Airtime for the performance of AI/ML Micro-Tasks. We will use the prize to improve and scale our products and platform. 

Fonbnk has created a next generation crypto wallet that enables a

frictionless, financial onramp for the emerging world. Leveraging the existing
network of mobile phone accounts, we provide a borderless banking infrastructure that uses mobile data as currency, enabling global transfers of value in increments as low as $0.01USD. Anyone with a prepaid mobile SIM card and a verified online identity can now have a global bank account for free. We are driving financial inclusion through digital access for the nearly 2-billion humans who are unbanked.

A unique NFT marketplace enabling users to monetize their unused prepaid SIM cards (the value that enables calls, text, or data) into a medium of commerce. We operate on a commission-based revenue system

arranged with businesses and marketplaces, instead of a
percentage-per-transaction charge on the user end. Our unique product architecture drives marginal costs to near-zero by leveraging the free and highly secure Ethereum blockchain protocol. Service offerings span payments, lending, remittances and savings, all of which occur in Fonbnk’s proprietary ecosystem using mobile data as currency alternative. 

We will use the prize to scale our unique product and expand in the rest of the emerging world to offer a solution to the un/underbanked people.