MenaPay — promoting cryptocurrency adoption in the Middle East and North Africa
There are 420 million people across 18 countries in the MENA region that are largely not using regular banking tools, 86% of people being unbanked. Whether it’s because of the poor banking system or the conservative practices of Islam, which is by far the dominant religion, the structure is very fragmented resulting in the existence of multiple currencies in a relatively compact area. Almost 7% of the world’s population lives in the MENA region.
According to yStats.com, over 50% of the online shoppers in the MENA region prefer cash payments to credit card payments, using credit cards is considered “haraam” (forbidden) by the Islamic religion. This becomes a problem especially for merchants who only receive payment after the product has been delivered to the customer. Cash flow is negatively affected by the slowness of transactions even though the demand for e-commerce is growing exponentially year after year.
Fortunately, these problems can be solved with the use of blockchain technology and this is exactly what MenaPay aims to achieve by creating a 100% Islamic compliant, non-bank digital solution. A cryptocurrency to be used in everyday and cross-border transactions. MenaCash, the currency of MenaPay, will be pegged to the US dollar which means 1 MenaCash will always be equal to 1 USD. This is important because in Islamic rules you cannot have any dividend or interest. The same rules state that each monetary transaction has to be witnessed by someone and this is easily solved by the blockchain where every node is basically a witness.
In a very high mobile penetration region, using MenaPay will be very simple. By scanning a QR code you can make payments in your daily life regardless of whether you’re shopping or booking a flight. It will also be very convenient as you won’t have to carry a lot of cash with you everywhere you go. By using KYC (Know-Your-Customer) and 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication) your account will be safe. In case you lose your mobile phone, a 16-digit passcode will need to be broken for anyone to unlock it, which is extremely unlikely.
Replacing the traditional payment methods will also greatly benefit the merchants in the region as transactions will take place at a much faster pace by eliminating intermediaries (issuing bank, payment gateway, payment processor, acquiring bank) and reducing friction. MenaPay will bring easy to use solutions such as mobile and desktop wallets, integration APIs and SDKs, reporting and a management dashboard for merchants, all with Arabic user interfaces.
MenaPay’s innovative crypto system solution will consist in two cryptocurrencies: the aforementioned MenaCash and an ERC20 MenaPay token (MPAY). The stable cryptocurrency MenaCash will work via a private blockchain solution to eliminate volatility and to feature safer and faster transactions than the old-fashioned financial instruments such as debit and credit cards. The tradeable MenaPay token will be used to distribute the majority of the revenue and profit of the MenaPay platform and it will also be available for crowd sale.
Funding for the project will be obtained from the public token sale (ICO) that will start in November this year. 400 million MenaPay Tokens (MPAY) will be generated of which 256 million tokens (64%) will belong to the community. The ICO’s soft cap target will be set at $5 million and the hard cap at $25 million. The estimated ICO price is $0.165 for a token and any unsold tokens will be burned.
The founders and the team have an ambitious goal of reaching a 1 billion USD market cap by mid 2019 and they have a clear business plan on how to do it. They intend to reach 5 million active users through strong marketing and with the help of onboarding premium merchants who will offer special discounts for MenaPay. Their marketing efforts will also include building an offline reseller network to allow easy entry to the cryptocurrency world. Acquiring the support of influence creators in the region such as women in the tech industry, politicians, artists and social entrepreneurs will also be crucial in MenaPay’s growth.
The roadmap shows important milestones that will be reached in the next year and a half, starting with the launch of the desktop and mobile payment app scheduled to take place in September. The ICO will start in November and by January 2019 MenaPay will have 50 premium merchants onboard. April will bring big improvements to the app including a facial recognition feature for secure transactions. If all goes according to plan, the 5 million MenaPay users milestone is estimated to be touched around the month of May and that will result in reaching the $1 billion market cap soon after. The end of 2019 will see the project implementing a P2P lending system that is powered by artificial intelligence. More information on that will probably be revealed at the time the white paper will be released.
MenaPay is a very interesting project because it has something that 99% other projects in the crypto space don’t have: an actual and clear use case. Their official website was easy to navigate, very interactive and pleasant to the eye. The whitepaper will be delivered at the end of this month and until then you can read more about the project in this extremely informative one pager.
I personally believe this project will be a success because it aims to solve a real world problem and it is targeting a region with an outdated and inadequate financial infrastructure, an untouched market space for blockchain technology. MenaPay is conceived and engineered by digital leaders to solve consumer’s fundamental payment needs and it’s one of the only few projects I’m really excited about in the cryptocurrency space. The potential is immense and the impact on the economy and cryptocurrency adoption in the MENA region can be huge.
If you are interested about this project and want to learn more don’t hesitate to use the links below.
Official website: https://www.menapay.io/
One pager: https://www.menapay.io/onepager.pdf
ICO structure: https://www.menapay.io/#ico-structure
Roadmap: https://www.menapay.io/#roadmap
The team: https://www.menapay.io/#team
Twitter: https://twitter.com/menapayio
Medium: https://medium.com/menapay
Telegram: https://t.me/MenaPay
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC56eU1zaQh2S8k7TB4S2RjA
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/menapay/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/menapayio
Disclaimer: This article was created in exchange for a potential token reward through Bounty0x.
Bounty0x username: @nelubodea
