Engineering updates & more

August update from the Airfox and AirToken engineering team

Greetings! It’s been a busy end of the summer for us at Airfox as we continue in our mission to provide financial services to the unbanked and underbanked in emerging markets. Here are some of the highlights of what we accomplished as we end summer with a bang and head into autumn here in Boston.

We’re making continuous improvements to the app, and have several exciting additions.

Easier deposits into the app

Depositing cash into the Airfox app at over 250,000 physical locations throughout Brazil thanks to our partnership with Fastcash. Cash can be deposited into Airfox in person with a cashier. If deposited this way, the transaction can appear in the users Airfox balance in a little as 15 minutes! If the user prefers to not interact with a person, they can also deposit the money into an ATM at the locations EVEN IF THEY DO NOT HAVE A BANK ACCOUNT AT THAT LOCATION! (This method does take a little longer to clear, but potentially saves users from waiting in long lines.)

Cash deposits into Airfox is easier, faster, and more convenient!

We’ve also improved the UI for depositing via bank transfer.

You can see how much the UI for bank deposits has improved!

Security

We have increased in-app security by adding a PIN code with lockout to protect users from unauthorized access of their balance in the app.

Additional app updates

Users now get a receipt through email for each successful transaction via boleto.

Boleto receipts can now be received via email.

And, always bug fixes and performance optimizations across all devices. For all app updates, you can visit the release notes.

What’s next

Airfox recently publicly announced our partnership with Via Varejo for digital payments solutions. Via Varejo is widely known as a retail giant in Brazil, and has been dubbed “The Walmart of Brazil.” As a company we are excited for Via Varejo to use our mobile wallet, and as an engineering team we are prioritizing engineering features that align with this partnership, as well as continue to drive adoption of our app and use of AirToken.

Some upcoming highlights you can expect to see:

Sending money to a non-Airfox user

Withdraw to any bank account or offline location for cash pick-up

Faster boleto payment processing through our partnership with Qiwi Brasil (Boleto payments in the app currently take 2 to 3 days. The new processing partnership is instant!)

Referrals in the app, and earning AirTokens for referrals

We’re hiring

As part of this effort, we are currently expanding our team here in Boston. Specifically we are seeking the following:

Devops Engineer

Lead Android Developer

Data Analytics Engineer

Solidity / Blockchain Engineer

If you or someone you know fits one of these descriptions, please have them send their resumes to jobs@airfox.com.

CTO transition

Over the past few months, we have been working hard to transition into a change of roles here at Airfox. We are excited to announce that Emanuel Moecklin has been promoted to CTO effective today, leading the ten-person engineering team based in Boston and São Paulo. Emanuel has been with Airfox for over two years as Chief Software Architect and Lead Android Developer. He is a mobile technology entrepreneur with 1gravity (founder and CEO), and former software architect/manager at PostFinance. Emanuel has architected, designed, and built large-scale transaction systems for the biggest payment processor in Switzerland, and worked in numerous big software projects for the management consulting business unit of PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is an expert in mobile advertising, and is the mobile development wizard of Airfox responsible for designing and implementing the Airfox mobile client architecture.

We would like to take this time to thank James for all of his invaluable contributions to Airfox. James will continue to be a part of the Airfox team as an advisor. Additionally, we would like to congratulate him on his next adventure with Circle Financial working on the Poloniex cryptocurrency exchange! Tchau James, thank you!

To support Emanuel, I will be transitioning to the role of VP of Engineering, so you’ll be hearing from me regularly with updates from the engineering team. Until next month!

by Luke Bayas