The Social Wallet, our non-profit digital wallet app that lets friends store, send, & request money with no fees, will compete against 4 other Canadian Fintech companies for a top prize of $20K at the first annual FinTech Cup hosted by the Canadian Payments Association in conjunction with the Digital Finance Institute.

Why do we have to pay to move and store our money? That is the main question we will be asking the judges on Wednesday, June 15th, in Calgary.

Money storage and transfer fees have become accepted by society as normal but we see it more as a symptom of an inefficient system. By leveraging the power of the Blockchain, mobile technology, and global internet access the Social Wallet is poised to give all people (including the 2.5 Billion adults worldwide who don’t have bank accounts) a fee-free alternative that makes transferring money as easy as sending a text message.

This example should make it crystal clear.

Think about a $20 bill. If there are 4 people sitting around a table we could pass the bill around the table and the ownership of that bill would move with it. It could go all the away around the table and back to me and it would be $20. The transfer is instant, there are no fees, and you don’t need a bank account to accept that $20.

Now lets think about how we would transfer the money digitally. We’re we’re sitting at a Tim Hortons in Canada and Email Money Transfer (EMT) is the dominant form of p2p money transfer. If we try and send $20 around the table digitally here’s what happens. First, lets assume we only have $20 total to send. So I send $20 to Toni and after a $1.50 fee (charged by the senders bank) it become $18.50. Toni sends it to Horia and it’s now $17. Horia to Victoria and $15.50. Victoria to Kyle and we’re at $14. To add to it, for every send we need to open our online banking app/website fill out a form, enter a security question, press send and then wait.

In the EMT scenario we’ve gone from an initial amount of $20 to $14…damn. With cash there’s no value loss but with EMT there are fees, delays and should one of the people not have an EMT associated bank account (or all non-Canadian bank accounts) then they are excluded from participating. So in this we have fees, delays, banks, and borders.

They call that Fintech…lol.

Enter Social Wallet. Assuming everyone at the table has the app, I open it and say Send Money -> $20 to Toni. Toni gets $20 and sends Horia $20. Horia gets $20 and then sends Victoria $20. Victoria then sends the $20 back to me. We have just sent $20 around the table digitally and on return it’s $20.

This is the power of the Social Wallet. It’s not that the banks are bad or anything like that. It’s that this is better and more efficient. Why would you pay fees and use clunky systems when you can use a free, secure, non-profit solution?

Got ya thinking? Now lets dive a little bit further…It’s not limited to just friends, it will be groups, businesses, governments, charities, and even machines; anyone or anything can have a wallet.

Right now, the base currency of the Social Wallet is Bitcoin. What is Bitcoin? Bitcoin is internet money based on math, cryptography, and open-source programming. It is digital cash and doesn’t care who you are, where you live, or what you do. If you aren’t familiar with Bitcoin you should drop everything and start learning to avoid getting left behind; trust me you won’t regret it.

But for those of you who aren’t ready for bitcoin have no fear because as the blockchain revolution picks up steam traditional infinite supply currencies like the Canadian and US dollar will be added to the wallet and you will be able to send these with no fees.

Don’t think of the Social Wallet as a bitcoin wallet. A bitcoin wallet is a money clip; the Social Wallet is a digital wallet. It can hold cash but also it can hold cards. But these cards aren’t plastic, they are digital and programmable. We are building an API so anyone can add cards to the wallet. Drivers License, Health Card, Bank Card, Insurance, Contact Information, Voter Card, Access Keys, Proof of Ownership cards, Loyalty Cards, Eye Prescriptions, etc.…the possibilities are endless and it will be easy for people to build cards thanks to the Blockchian revolution and the incredibly talented people of planet earth.

You the user will be in full control of your Wallet. Cards can be linked to each other but that’s up to you. At the end of the day we are looking at the wallet in your pocket and thinking “we can do better and we will do better.”

We see the digital wallet as being so important to people everywhere that it can’t be a for profit company. With that in mind we are organizing it as a not-for-profit organization. A good comparison is Wikipedia. Where WIkipedia digitized the encyclopedia we are digitizing the wallet.

To get this far we have had the help of hundreds of people but to bring financial inclusion and secure digital wallets to the world we will need the help of thousands if not millions. Technically, there are some challenges but nothing we can’t solve. Financially, we are lean mean fighting machines but to grow we are going to need capital. Winning the Fintech Cup could be the spark that ignites this gasoline soaked mattress.

Charity. Hope. Faith.

Kyle Kemper

On a personal note, I would like to congratulate the other four fintech companies on making the finals. They are:

Katipult. Want to do crowdfunding at an enterprise scale? Katipult have build a white-label crowdfunding platform that allows corporations to raise funds for projects in a fashion similar to Indiegogo or Kickstarter.

Change Jar. Hate the change you get when using cash? Well with ChangeJar you can have that change sent to your ChangeJar account.

NIMJA. Like tapping and paying for things? With NIMJA merchants can avoid using payment terminals and let android merchants & users tap and pay with their phones.

Zayzoon. Need a couple bucks before payday? Well with Zayzoon, if your employer is on the network, you can quickly, easily, and affordably get an advance on your paycheque.