Image via news.bitcoin.com/Jamie Redman

Financial inclusion has been a hot topic for decades, discussed in global financial conferences, circulates the international banking industry, and a major policy outlook for international organizations such as the United Nations, the IMF, and the World Bank among others.

Providing individuals and businesses in emerging economies access to financial services such as payment solutions, transaction processing ecosystems, credit services, and savings will not only bootstrap many people into prosperity but will drastically reduce abject poverty.

Sadly, as the world boasts of its technological advancements in artificial intelligence, robotics, and other cutting-edge innovations, the global financial industry is still left behind. And the statistics are scary. About 1.7 billion people are still unbanked according to the latest Findex report.

The Cause? High traditional financing charges, strong centralized systems, needless formal identification documents, and security concerns. But whiles the G20, the World Bank, and other global financial institutions are committed to eliminating the financial inclusion woes faced by many countries, one organization is building the backbone for individuals and businesses that are eliminated from the financial system to have access to world-class, cutting-edge solutions, and it’s doing it with the blockchain.

Meet Everex — Financial Inclusion and Remittance for the unbanked

Raising half a million dollars in seed funding from the Chinese industrial giant Holley Group in July 2017 and US$26 million from its initial coin offering in August same year, Everex is leveraging the blockchain technology on the Ethereum platform to build financial solutions for the unbanked businesses and individuals of the world, and money transfer services, enabling individuals to send money across borders at very low cost, and instantly.

With the aim of banking the unbanked, the Everex team has developed a number of products. Notable among these products are the Everex e-wallet, an electronic wallet that allows users to store, buy, sell, or undertake money transfer in different national currencies. As a seamless multi-currency wallet, Everex’s e-wallet can be managed by institutions, governments, and corporates, with an all-time availability of financing for small and medium enterprises around the world.

According to the World Bank, the average cost of undertaking a $200 cross-border transaction was 7.1 percent (as of 2018). The high fees, coupled with long processes and delays are just a few of the problems that plague today’s global remittances. Everex is out to change the story. With its blockchain-powered remittance program, Everex is bringing lightning fast money transfer around the globe, low fees, and the ability to conduct legal money transfer without going through the many unnecessary details that plague the traditional money transfer scene.

Everex’s global blockchain-powered remittance program is already in operation in Myanmar, where it partnered with Shwe Urban and Rural Development Bank, enabling digital remittance services to the underbanked population between Myanmar and Thailand. Users in these two countries will be able to send and receive money seamlessly — it’s a decentralization process meets low fees and fast transfers.

With a developing global remittance, financing, and bridging the fiat-to-crypto world, more innovative products are needed. And Everex has already built the ecosystem to champion a fully decentralized finance system for all.