REMIIT on Korea Economy TV
Anchor — Today we have Mr Chansoo An, the CEO of REMIIT. Can you please introduce yourself to our audience please?
Stevie An(CEO REMIIT) — My name is Chansoo An, CEO of REMIIT Project. To briefly explain about REMIIT, the REMIIT Project is a platform that provides blockchain powered remittance and payment services. The project provides opportunities for Money Transfer Operators and Payment Providers to expand their scope of business and allow end users like ordinary individuals that use the platform to experience a more transparent and less costly remittance and payment service.
Anchor — REMIIT, we will be speaking further about what services it will provide for people. Before that, I heard that Mr Taewon Kim had some questions about it.
Taewon Kim (CEO/CTO Glosfer) — Mr Chansoo An has been previously operating an overseas remittance company. Even now he is working on Overseas Remittance Dot Com in Japan and Payphil in the Phillipines. Overseas remittance or blockchain powered remittance and payment services are not something an average person knows about. Can you please explain a little more about it?
Stevie An (CEO REMIIT) — We were the first service in South Korea for overseas remittances. Although there are many companies that say they are the first but we were the benchmarking model for this service. When we went to a bitcoin seminar for the first time, we thought, to move the asset from one place to another, bitcoin can be a very efficient method and that it would be good to utilize it for remittance services. We opened the Philippines service in April 2015 in an area where many Filipino people gather. The reaction to this service was far greater than of what we expected as there was a large need to send small amounts of money back home. As for our service, it was an easy online transfer method where the user can experience the transaction in just 10 minutes. Not long after launching, the user-base expanded to 10,000 people and the retention rate was over 90%. After the Philippines service, we expanded our business to China, Japan and the Philippines. Until the new law was announced last year, we have made around 300 to 500 transactions each day and sent over $80M worth of volume.
Tae-eon Gu (Lawyer Tech&Law) — Previously when you were doing the transactions, the system was not recording it on the blockchain but only using the cryptocurrency. The core would be now, how you will be using the blockchain for the remittance services. What problems existed in the remittance business and how are you trying to resolve that through the blockchain?
Stevie An (CEO REMIIT) — Previously when we were operating the business, we used the cryptocurrency to do the transactions but not using the blockchain technology like the smart contract. As we were operating the business, we discovered that there was a price difference between countries although it is the same coin which brings difficulty to provide the services. What we thought was not just the troubles we faced when doing the remittance operations but considering the market itself. For Money Transfer Operators, the basic things they think about is on how they can increase their user-base and obtain high loyalty users which decides the success and failure of these companies. However for existing banks, they use the old SWIFT system allowing them to use just one network to connect with other banks in different countries. For Money Transfer Operators and start-ups, the problem they face is that even though they want to expand the countries of services, they have to search for partners themselves and check whether they are a trustable company as well as connecting the technical aspects together. So there are many costs that occur and even though this goes smoothly, there is no guarantee that accidents will not occur during the process. There are many start-ups with great technology that can resolve the current need in the market however due to their lack of funds, many cannot properly expand before they disappear. Therefore we want to create a platform where these companies can operate easily and freely that lead to business expansion.
Anchor — How are you operating this platform?
Stevie An (CEO REMIIT) — A lot of development and innovation occur in various industries very quickly however when we say we want to send money overseas, a large proportion uses a very old and traditional method of sending money through banks where they use SWIFT which is over 100 years old. Within the SWIFT, there are many intermediaries the users do not know and when the number of intermediaries increase, the fees and costs become higher for the users. For the costs, it is not just the surcharges but you have to go to the bank during the operating hours and the time taken for the transaction generally take over one day. So when we say “costs” it is not just the fees but various things all together constitute a large “cost”.
Taewon Kim (CEO/CTO Glosfer) — Beyond the problems like the security and things, for the audience watching to actually feel the change would be whether the fees can really be lowered through this platform you are building. Can you please explain further on this?
Stevie An (CEO REMIIT) — The companies with remittance licenses have cost-effectiveness compared to the existing financial institutions. For this industry to develop, these companies need to have more competitiveness but for these companies to have the competitiveness, they are in an environment where they face difficulty in the aforementioned expansion of business and obtaining the users. For our REMIIT Project, not just being able to send money from one place to another but for businesses to expand and scale their companies.
Taewon Kim (CEO/CTO Glosfer) — Many people in the financial sector would know that there are many problems in the traditional remittance processes however the important thing is that it has been 100 years since it was made which means that it has a very strong infrastructure. What is your competitive edge that can beat this?
Stevie An (CEO REMIIT) — I would like to say that we don’t have to beat it. SWIFT already has the trust from the customers that we do not have. However there is a huge amount of remittance transactions across the world and we believe that there will be consumers that will look for our service. Therefore, the future of our service visioned in my head is creating a blockchain network and experience a fast and cheap transaction which will lead to more loyalty to our service.
Tae-eon Gu (Lawyer Tech&Law) — What are the advantages of REMIIT?
Stevie An (CEO REMIIT) — To explain briefly about REMIIT Platform’s structure. Our base is connecting and matching groups and individuals through the smart contract. For example, if I want to remit money from Korea to Japan, in the current method, I need to find a trustable partner in Japan. On this platform, without the need of this, through the smart contract that we mostly design named REMIIT Smart Contract (RSC), the companies simply insert the day’s exchange rate and service fees, and then upload it on the RSC Store. Then, the users will come to the store and select the suitable smart contract for them. Thus this is transparent and there is a very low possibility of accidents occurring due to ESCROW systems and other algorithms. Therefore trust issues are resolved and you can build trust from users as you conduct more transactions. This is the initial eco-system that we aim to create.
Anchor — I believe a lot of the viewers will have interest in the cryptocurrency used within the eco-system. For blockchain remittance and payment, there would be a need of a currency that acts as a means of transfer. Can you please explain?
Stevie An (CEO REMIIT) — I believe that providing a service on the blockchain is the same as creating a small country. In order to do this, we need to think about the governance and a currency policy according to the governance. In reality, when the government wants to strengthen or protect something, they support and cultivate to enhance the industry. There exists these type of policies and within a blockchain ecosystem, we must be able to cultivate and restrict the currency policy. The most important part of REMIIT Project is the stability of the token when money is transferred back and forth from one place to another. The project’s success will be determined by how stable the exchange rates we provide is. On the other-hand, when we think about a token, there are 2 sides to it. It needs to be used as a currency within a platform but it also needs to be on the exchange as an investment asset. To separate these characteristics, we created a Two-tier token system. The token we issue initially is called REMI and will be traded on the exchanges and have the function to convert to another token called REMD. The token that will be used within the platform will be REMD. The internal token REMD can be exchanged through the internal Decentralized exchange.
Taewon Kim (CEO/CTO Glosfer) — If you have this two-tier token system, I think you will have the ambition to look into the payment industry.
Stevie An (CEO REMIIT) — Having a platform that has the ability to transfer money, it means that it has the function to transfer assets. There are so many businesses we can enter if the transfer of money is possible. In the future, we are building a payment platform called RPGP using the Remittance platform. When it evolves more from this, we often experience payment issues overseas when booking hotels or rental cars where the transaction has not processed. Our final goal is working with hotel chains and uploading their service conditions on our platform and create a marketplace of various industries. There will be no issues that occur using the platform as everything will be recorded on the platform.
Tae-eon Gu (Lawyer Tech&Law) — There are many payment providers that work on top of the financial regulations. Are you heading towards a co-existence or a competition?
Stevie An (CEO REMIIT) — We hope to co-exist. Regarding the payment, when we make overseas payments through our cards abroad, there will be an exchange rate and fee. However this rate and fee is uninformed to the user on which institutions it crosses and why it takes so much for this transaction. The RPGP I envision that works through the Smart Contract in the REMIIT Platform is to bring these payment providers onto our platform and ensure all transactions are on the smart contract and show all the transactions in between while removing many intermediaries that previously existed can bring the prices down a lot. Therefore we believe that there are many businesses and users in these industries that are looking for services like ours.
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