Period: Winter 2016
Call: FOUNDAMENTA#2
The societal challenge:
Provide a secure payment method capable of turning humanitarian voucher fairs into a fraud free, rapid and effective experience to NGOs, merchants and humanitarian assistance right holders (beneficiaries).
The solution proposed:
Merkur.io is a system based on a cryptovalue whose aim is to facilitate Cash Transfer programs for refugees or victims of natural disasters in developing countries. Cash Transfer is a transfer of direct economic resources from states, federal governments or NGOs to eligible individuals. Beneficiaries receive vouchers (mostly printed on paper, and so easily subject to counterfeiting, and hardly traceable) that they can freely spend on goods and services within the Humanitarian Fair. Merchants, often selected from the local realities to favor the local economy, at the end of the Fair convert vouchers into the local currency. The timing of the transaction and the voucher conversion expose the mechanism so far adopted to a further criticality: the fluctuation of the exchange. Mercur.io wants to support cash transfer programs (particularly those promoted by the United Nations) by offering a traceable, difficult to counterfeit, and not subject to fluctuation solution.
Team:
- Gabriele Erba
- Thomas Rossi
- Luca Vaccaro
