OlehPay, a company that creates a fourth platform for users to easily and inexpensively send money from their American bank accounts to their Israeli bank accounts, and vice versa.
The system is simple! The client clicks on a button that says how much money they want to move, then OlehPay debts their account in the United States. “The money moves to a pool in the U.S., and then we [OlehPay] credit Shekel in Israel, and then the money moves from a pool of Shekel to their Israeli accounts,” Sokol explains.
“By doing the process this way, the cost to debit an account is free, and to credit an account is free, and all [OlehPay] does is balance the pools in between. So, the cost to us [OlehPay] is close to nothing.”
OlehPay provides the service at a small fee, which is less expensive than alternative services.
OlehPay goal is to serve its clients and ensure international transfers are inexpensive, easy and efficient.
OlehPay was founded when Joseph Sokol was taking a gap year in Israel. Sokol wanted a more convenient way of moving money from his American account to his Israeli account, but could not find a sufficient and inexpensive way to do so. “I looked at all the available services online and couldn’t find anything that sufficed what I wanted to do,” says Sokol.
So, he took it upon himself to build his own solution. Originally, OlehPay began as “a program where you could pay directly, like for rent, or tuition, directly with a debit card.”
“What we would do is debit your card the same way, and then we credit who ever is getting the money in shekel.”
That system had failed them, and they ended up getting shut down by authorities in the United States. “We hustled to find a new banking partner, which has made our system more on the compliance, and made our system more robust. In this process, I learned to code.”
Sokol then started to developed a platform. “It kind of started as an experiment, like ‘how can you build a system for paying for services internationally?’, ” he explained. “It then kind of evolved into ‘how can I let anyone access it conveniently with the program that I build/envision, and with the mechanics that the bank provides.’ ” That is when it all started to form into OlehPay, as a system for anyone to move money for any reason, from the United States to Israel, and vice versa.
How OlehPay first got started with Siftech is not your average “word of mouth” story, but one that is by chance. “I had my Google maps open, and I happened to see on my phone it said Siftech Accelerator,” tells Sokol.
“I’m in tech, so I thought I’d check it out. I just showed up and met some of the team, thought it was a cool place to work. Then, I actually told them [Siftech] that I am working on OlehPay.”
After this, Sokol simply asked “Can I sit here?”, to which Siftech’s response was “Okay”. That is when OlehPay initially became involved with Siftech. Now, they are participants in the round #7 accelerator program.
*Fun Fact- Sokol’s childhood dreams were to become a professional pianist.
Website: https://olehpay.co.il/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OlehPayIsrael/
Time of Israel Feature: https://www.timesofisrael.com/yeshiva-student-develops-way-to-ease-cost-of-moving-us-cash-to-israel/
