written by H|D
Telcoin experienced one of its best weeks towards the end of November 2018. The partnership with Jumia Nigeria is only going to strengthen the ecosystem that they’ve set out to establish. If you’re not familiar with that ecosystem and its components, let me enlighten you.
- Remittances: This is Telcoin’s bread and butter. Through their solution, Telcoin will facilitate easy and inexpensive remittances to and from mobile money platforms, increasing the adoption of partner mobile money.
- International Aid: Telcoin will have the ability to enable efficient disbursement of funds to underbanked aid recipients, and leverage telecom capabilities to geographically limit disbursement areas and prevent fraud.
- e-Commerce Marketplace: Underbanked individuals will be able to purchase items, such as food, on an e-commerce platform (i.e. Jumia Nigeria) with Telcoins.
- Mobile Game Currency: Underbanked individuals will be able to purchase game credits on a game portal with Telcoins.
Let me be frank with everyone. I’m literally ALL IN. I’ve pushed all my chips in the middle of the table because of the Philippines, and here’s why.
Virtual Currency Exchange (VCE) License
Telcoin has been working meticulously to obtain their VCE License in the Philippines, and they are so close to being fully compliant.
In newsletter #8 (July 24, 2018), Telcoin announced that they initiated the process to obtain a remittance license in the Philippines. A process that normally takes 1 year, only took them 4 months.
In newsletter #10 (October 4, 2018), Telcoin announced that the first phase of the VCE License registration was accepted.
In newsletter #11 (November 12, 2018), Telcoin announced that they had been issued a “Letter of No Objection”, which essentially opens the door for them to operate in the Philippines.
There is still a final step in the VCE registration process, but in my book it’s a done deal.
What is most fascinating to me is how diligent Telcoin is when it comes to compliance. They’ve completed this process in less than 8 months.
Telecommunication Partnership
Many have been speculating regarding which Telecom Operator, in the Philippines, has a partnership with Telcoin. Is it Smart Communications (owned by PLDT) or Globe Telecom (owned by SingTel)?
GSMA Partner
We know that the Telecom must be a GSMA partner: Globe (check) and Smart (check). So far so good.
Electronic Money Issuer
We know that the Telecom must have an Electronic Money Issuers (EMIs) license.
In 2004, Globe invested in G-Xchange (GXI), its subsidiary, to handle the mobile payment and remittance service marketed under the GCash brand.
Smart Communications, through its subsidiary PayMaya Philippines, started Smart Money, a mobile electronic wallet that also enables its SMS-based money remittance service Smart Padala. PayMaya Philippines, Inc. is the pioneer in mobile money and payments, having established brands such as PayMaya, the first prepaid online payment app that enables the financially underserved to pay online without a credit card; Smart Money, the world’s first e-wallet linked to a mobile phone; and Smart Padala, the leading remittance network in the Philippines. PayMaya Philippines is a subsidiary of Voyager Innovations, the digital innovations company of PLDT and Smart Communications.
If you remember the List of BSP Supervised Electronic Money Issuers (EMIs) that was provided a while back, PayMaya Philippines and G-Xchange (GXI) were both on the list of the institutions that possess the EMI license.
Mobile Game Currency
With Telcoin, it’s important to pay attention to trends and the bread crumbs that they drop along the way. The Jumia Nigeria announcement confirmed two things: evidence that Telcoin was focused on more than just the remittance aspect of their ecosystem, which also meant that they more than likely have multiple Telecom partnerships lined up.
At the very beginning, I mentioned components of Telcoin’s ecosystem: Remittances, disaster relief, e-commerce, and mobile game currency. The one component that I hadn’t researched much was mobile game currency.
If you remember, Claude talked about Telcoin and gaming at The North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami. In his very first Q&A, with the community, he stated the following: “Alix, Eric, and I have worked in Japanese game companies in the past. What we have noticed is that a lot of people in Japan, spend money on their phone bill for virtual items every month. It is a very large source of revenue for those companies. We want to sell tokens on people’s phone bills, so we just made the link. What if Telcoin could be used as a game currency? What if Telcoin could be bought on your phone bill like those virtual items? It would be a very convenient experience for game developers. Using our APIs to provide a simple way for your users to access virtual items and increase your revenue stream without having to think of any sort of details under the hood. We have a very large vision, and this is part of it.”
Trust me, I am going somewhere with this.
Since Claude mentioned Japan, I started looking at the mobile gaming revenues in Asia-Pacific (APAC), and the numbers are staggering.
“In the coming years, mobile game revenue growth will continue to outpace the overall games market, growing to $106.4 billion in 2021. By then, smartphone and tablet games combined will generate 59% of revenues in the entire market.”
As I continued my research, I stumbled upon THE CLUE! It’s an old press release from Smart Communications dating back to 2015. It started with the following statement: “In 2014, wireless services leader Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) launched GameX (www.gamex.ph/epins) as the country’s first online portal for purchasing game ePins and since then, it has made great strides in revolutionizing the PC online gaming industry and in promoting eSports in the country.”
As I kept reading the press release, it became evident that Telcoin and Smart were involved in some sort of relationship, and one of the links was GameX, Smart’s online portal for purchasing game credits. It just seemed to fit Telcoin’s Mobile Game Currency concept perfectly. The more I read the press release, the more I believed in my premise. At this point, I am convinced that Smart Communications wants Filipino gamers to purchase game credits or E-pins on the GameX web portal using Telcoin as a currency. And then these statements made by the head of Smart’s Innovation and Product Development Group was THE game changer.
“There is an estimated 10 million PC online gamers in the country. Most of these games are free-to-play, but those who want to level up their game can do so by purchasing characters, weapons or extra lives sold by game publishers in two ways: through prepaid ePin cards available at retail outlets or through online credit card transactions.”
“This traditional setup presented a lot of difficulty among Filipino gamers, most of whom live far from retail outlets, and do not own credit cards. Imagine being so immersed in your game when suddenly you run out of credits — you have no choice but to pause your game, get out of the house and head to a store miles away, hoping they have the card you need in stock. It was inconvenient to say the least. But GameX changed all that”.
Did the press release just state: “Filipino gamers, most of whom live far … and do not own credit cards.”? Yes, it did.
I’ve had the pleasure to have a few conversations with Claude, CEO of Telcoin. He truly knows his stuff by the way. I asked him a series of complex questions, and he was unshaken. He was resolute when answering all my questions, and let’s just say that I left our conversation in awe of Claude, Telcoin, and the leadership team. Claude stated that one of the company’s focus is practicality. Telcoin wants to make things convenient for underbanked individuals, which clearly aligns very well with Smart’s approach.
PADCDI Members
In newsletter #7 (June 18, 2018), Telcoin announced that they’d met with the PADCDI (Philippines Association for Digital Commerce & Decentralization Industry) group. PADCDI has been pushing to bring Telcoin to the Philippines. In newsletter #11 (November 12, 2018), Telcoin announced that they were official PADCDI members.
Well if you look at the list of members, you’ll notice that Smart Communications is one of the PADCDI members, the same PADCDI that was very enthused to bring Telcoin to the Philippines. Not only am I certain that Smart Communications is Telcoin’s telecom partner for remittances, but also for its gaming use case. This would be a huge victory for Telcoin; being able to partner with a telecom that will take part of two components of their ecosystem.
The combination of the VCE License being nearly granted, Smart Communications being the telecom partner, and GameX being a pivotal component of Telcoin’s ecosystem, makes me extremely BULLISH. I have decided to go ALL IN, and nothing will change my mind at this point. I just need Telcoin to go ahead and make an official announcement.
Stay tuned for my next release. And as always, connect the dots…
H|D
Disclaimer: The information and discussion above is not confirmed until we receive an official statement from Telcoin. Please do not use this as financial advice. Do Your Own Research!
References
http://www.bsp.gov.ph/banking/emi.pdf
https://us16.campaign-archive.com/?u=fe9cf85b52c0e222c4d96dee3&id=a04e853036
https://mailchi.mp/82f3a2cbecc7/newsletter-10
https://us16.campaign-archive.com/?u=fe9cf85b52c0e222c4d96dee3&id=d46f146a70
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ_LEh2Ag_A
https://padcdi.org.ph/membership
https://us16.campaign-archive.com/?u=fe9cf85b52c0e222c4d96dee3&id=32254e0791
https://us16.campaign-archive.com/?u=fe9cf85b52c0e222c4d96dee3&id=d46f146a70
