Lodge AMA with Victoria Garcia, Rpay (Reserve) Mexico Country Leader
This article is a summary of the AMA between the Reserve Community and Victoria Garcia, Rpay (Reserve) Mexico Country Leader in our Telegram Group, on May 3 2023.
Question 1 — What is your role at Reserve, and how does your day look like?
Victoria | Reserve
I am Mexico Country Manager. I work in BD as a Entrepreneur in Residence. I also support in other areas of BD but my main role is leading efforts of Rpay in Mexico
My days usually vary but they have the following activities: coordinating with other teams such as CX, Compliance, Liquidity, and others to make sure that our progress is on track.
I am also looking constantly for partnerships or strategies to expand the user base or merchants of the country.
Question 2— How would you describe Rpay? In which countries does it operate? Can you give us some interesting stats about its users and usage? Do you see Reserve as a brand making headway in LATAM?
Victoria | Reserve
Rpay is an app that looks to erase economic barriers between countries. We are really interested in helping the day to day people that cannot take full advantage of their money due to factors outside of their control, such as economic situation of the country or financial systems. We do this through the power of stablecoins, in this case eUSD.
Interesting stats to me would be how different it is the typical user and usage per country. The user it is not the same as in Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia or even Mexico. The way we need to communicate or attract them differs per country, but something that is common is the community sense
I might be biased when answering if Reserve is the brand making headway because I believe in what we are doing. I do think we will make it and bring true help to the people that need it in Latin America
Question 3— With the move to eUSD for user balances, what would you say are the benefits for Rpay users, and for RSR token holders? Will Rpay offer some of the yield to its users — could a savings account in which users can keep their money and get yield be one of these products?
Victoria | Reserve
Our users tend not to be that proficient in crypto so far. So I don't fully know how knowledgeable they are about the benefits of eUSD, but in Rpay we know that our users money or value is safe due to the mechanics of the protocol and how eUSD works, which is our main concern, that the value that any grandma or mom&pop shop is saving will stay protected.
Will Rpay have a savings account, this I cannot answer as I truly don’t know. Many things change in Rpay, it is dynamic. In the near future we will bring the card.
Question 3 —
We heard a while ago that the card may come sometime this year, do you know much more about the product?
Victoria | Reserve
I know that the card will be issued so that any international user will be able to use it. I know that it will use the funds of eUSD that the customer has in the wallet.
Question 4—
Has adding an Rtoken to Rpay improved or added friction when it comes to having conversations with businesses and partners? Is it helpful or unhelpful noise to switch stable currencies while asking people to use and trust Reserve?
Victoria | Reserve
This is a really interesting question, because a partner that we are working currently with for Mexico, they did have a lot of questions, but more to understand the difference between eUSD and RSV. So we had to explain in an extended way.
But our users, they have not asked that much. About the noise, I can only say about my experience with this specific partner, we have to go through due diligence, it is quite common for many things, and that just required to explain again about the virtual asset.
Question 5—
Is there anything you can say about this partner? If not specifically, then in general terms?
Victoria | Reserve
Not much. I can say I’m hoping it is coming out soon. It has been a lot of work we have put into it, and it makes me happy.
Question 6— How has the halt of expansion in Venezuela affected daily RPay volume? Where can we read more about this?
Victoria | Reserve
I think the best answer to this was Nevin’s post in Medium:
Question 7— Have Reserve’s banking problem in the US affected Rpay relationship with banks in Mexico? Are you losing some fiat on ramps with the current situation?
Victoria | Reserve
No, it has not affected in any way.
Question 8—
So the problem is mostly for US based banking, or are other LATAM countries affected?
Victoria | Reserve
As Nevin explained it is US based banking which affects any type of usage or movement for people in other LATAM countries that want to move USD or do something related to US banking.
Question 9—
Moving back to Rpay entering Mexico: How would you say it is going, can you say how many users are using the app, and how are you promoting the app?
What would you say Rpay can offer Mexico right now? Is it an inflation play like in Venezuela, or a remittance play, or something else? Could you briefly elaborate on the targeted services and plans?
Victoria | Reserve
Rpay entered legally last year. But Mexico is really cumbersome and bureaucratic so it took a while to get the bank transfer ramp ready. So we launched the country last day of march and we have had steady increase of usage, we have now around 100 active users and they usage is more on-ramping than off-ramping. We have had a lot of p2p and crypto usage.
We have not promoted the app much as we wanted to test all was going good as it was an integration through APIs (that’s why we got our business to serve all commercial Mexican banks)
We will start promoting by making community, by doing education, community building and referrals from other clients. The app in Mexico targets the following user case: remittances, payments and saving. So we will help with that.
About the targeted services and plans, we want to have finished what we are doing now to start going after those alliances. But we want to make it easier for users to use the app due its easiness of usage in a network of use (meaning you can pay with merchants and so forth).
Question 10—
You are working with something like over 100 Mexican banks, is this correct?
Victoria | Reserve
Yes correct… The Mexican financial system is all interrelated through Mexico Central Bank system. So we connected with a partner that is connected to the system through APIs.
Question 11 —
When you say you see on-ramping more than off-ramping at the moment, do you see that as people keeping savings in eUSD, or about being able to send money to other people? Although it’s early days, can you see what’s more popular at the moment?
Victoria | Reserve
We are seeing a lot of p2p and we are seeing movement to crypto. I don't know if they are saving in crypto though. We in Mexico have one of the best offers to buy crypto due to the easiness of the transactions. Plus we don't have commissions.
Question 12 —
Since you have this infrastructure, do you plan to offer Rpay users an option to buy crypto, BTC, ETH, RSR,…? Paypal, Revolut, many apps are offering this now.
Victoria | Reserve
There already is that option in the app. You can buy ETH and Bitcoin, you can also buy or sell from or to DAI, USDC and USDT.
The app has integrated the wallet of Bitcoin or ETH so you can buy and keep it there. Or send it to other wallet.
Question 13—
So you could send DAI or USDC from an external wallet to the Rpay app, and it would convert to eUSD?
Victoria | Reserve
Yes
Question 14 — Do you feel it’s necessary to reach a certain level of network effect with ordinary users before going after merchants, or do they go hand-in-hand? What strategies do you use, or intend to use, to attract merchants?
Victoria | Reserve
They go hand in hand usually, but you have to start somewhere and we usually start with users.
I come from the Fintech industry. That’s my background, so I have contacts in the industry and I will start looking for partnerships that will help me build a network. But again, this is my plan, still not happening.
Question 15— You said earlier that there were other coordination efforts going on before partnership strategies. Are you able to talk about the current priorities?
Victoria | Reserve
I know now that we are working coordinating everything for this partnership we discussed earlier. But that’s for Mexico. The rest of the BD is divided according to their areas and some are working on the card, some other in the banking some other on ramps for other countries.
Big priority is getting the bank in USA as Nevin mentioned, and for Mexico, getting this partnership across the finish line.
Question 16— In this first month of presence in Mexico, have you already noticed feedback on the degree of interest from the local population? Have any trends emerged on the type of use preferred by Mexican users?
Victoria | Reserve
I think this question relates to the previous one where I mentioned that we are seeing so far p2p and Crypto interest. About the local population I’m not sure. We will run experiments now that we will start promoting more actively the app to see who is using the app and why and leverage that.
But I can say I’m going after women. Women are the main receiver of remittances, are the ones that are moving the informal economy (using new ways of making payments) and are saving the money. They are our target.
Question 17 — Before Mexico launched, Matt Gertler told us there was a pause because of needing to change some wording in the app specific to Mexico, and things like that.
This may be a question for the app engineering team, but if new countries come online later, is the app now in a state of flexibility to make changes without much coding on a per-country basis?
Victoria | Reserve
Oh wow…You guys are really informed LOL. I think the engineering team will be able to answer better this, but from my understanding some wording does not require much coding, but some other wording does, as in the Mexico example it required a little bit of more disclosures and legal terms posted.
Question 17 — How do you see the next six months playing out for Rpay Mexico, and the next 12 months? How does success look like in your eyes, and do you have any goals you can share with us?
Victoria | Reserve
Next six Months, it will bring adjustments, as everything will be new we need to make sure all is working properly and if not modify it and also get any feedback from the regulator.
12 months — I see us going up in recognition and usage, making a big community of users and good network of partners that will allow for better penetration of usage. Success in my eyes looks like more testimonials from clients saying that we actually helped them in their day to day.
Thank you Lodge for having me!
Lodge Reserve Rangers
Thank you very much for joining us Victoria and all of the great information and thoughts!
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