In the meanwhile, the team admits Monity is an all-consuming preoccupation, invisible to most faculty and students. “Monity wants to step into that market and develop a relationship of trust we can use to educate users and eventually provide jobs that will help move the entire economy forward.” “People go to those companies because there is nothing else.” Monity believes a close affinity with the people of the market will offer a loyalty and intuition advantage in marketing the service. companies in the money transfer sector have not created a relationship of trust with the market. “We mainly talk about people sending money back to families in Latin America, but there would also be utility for individuals such as foreign students in universities, for NGOs and missionaries, and for populations all over the developing world,” Zuñiga noted.Ĭruz notes that the traditional U.S. They predict they eventually will be able to serve unbanked customers as well, however. The team realized that, given the demographics and attrition, an ever-increasing percentage of their customers will have a relationship with a bank. Every other player in this industry targets Mexico.” “Salvadorans are the largest population, after Mexico, transferring money from the U.S. “Our entry point now is the United States-to-El Salvador corridor.” said Cruz. are mostly younger people, more accustomed to working with banks.” Also, our original target market was unbanked individuals but the individuals who are sending money out of the U.S. With El Salvador as our beachhead market, Monity will start out lighter on our feet. dollar is the official currency of El Salvador. “The exchange rate was always the big unknown in the equation.” said Rojas. Senior management information systems major Andres Rojas consults with an expert on regulatory issues. The strategy was successful: Monity was well-received at the Governor’s Cup Competition, taking third place and a $10,000 cash prize. With their team in place, they used the Governor’s Cup competition as a concentrated effort to move their vision forward. They needed marketing expertise, and Cruz knew Escobar had big dreams for things she wanted to do. “And we asked who else could align themselves with our dreams?” Cruz said. The team considered a digital wallet, but eventually settled on money transfers. They soon added Rojas, who was, as Cruz said, “all about big data.” Then they began trying to identify an important problem to solve. Rush Deacon of Arkansas Capitol, Zuniga, Escobar, Dhu Thompson, Cruz, Rojas, Lt. “We launched the game, but people would play for a while, but when players didn’t see a critical mass of users, they would drop off.” They sidelined the game and looked for partners. Their first attempt didn’t end as they’d hoped they spent six months developing a video game, but soon realized they needed team members with solid business skills. They discussed their dreams of creating a business and returning to help their countries. Zuñiga and Cruz met on a campus bus on a Walton Scholars trip to Walmart. Monity’s collaboration began the week they first arrived in Arkansas. The total in transfer fees he had paid over the years seemed staggering, and that revelation planted the seed for Monity. It contained a record of his wages and of all the money he had transferred from his remote employment location back to his family. CEO Michael Cruz established the need by describing a ledger his father had shared with him. We were impressed with their quiet commitment. We remember the first meeting of last year’s Arkansas Governor’s Cup business plan competition teams, at which students explained their ideas to faculty and answered questions about the viability of their business model.Īt a corner table sat four Latin American students, intently explaining their vision for a blockchain-based money transfer system for the developing world, where millions of foreign workers pay high fees to send money to unbanked families across national borders. Recently, computer science major Pedro Navarrete from Nicaragua came aboard to assist with web development. The founding members of Monity are computer engineering major Michael Cruz of Belize, international business major Roxana Escobar of El Salvador, management information systems major Andres Rojas of Costa Rica, and software development major Jhoel Zuñiga of Costa Rica. L-R: Zuniga, Navarrete, Cruz, Rojas, and Escobar and faculty member Jon Woodįintech startup Monity is the embodiment of the Walton Scholarship vision: Combining the foundation’s investment in educational opportunity with hard work and persistence, Walton Scholars are charged to return home with a vision to make meaningful contributions to the region.
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