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Reporter: pencil boxn
Kai Lin was a process specialist at ExxonMobil, a hot summer in September 2015. She traveled to the Greek port city of Piraeus, where there were beautiful natural landscapes and fascinating histories. But the value of the Middle East war caused by the influx of refugees, Piraeus is a lot of refugees to Europe’s first stop. Kai Lin also found the other side of the tourist area – along the coast of the street, there are rows of pawn shops, where a large number of refugees to sell gold chain, watches and heirloom in exchange for the euro. This makes life grow in the age of peace Kai Lin, very touching:n
nnFor a young man born in a peaceful society, the idea of ”fleeing the war” can be said to be out of reach, “violence” in my life experience, it is only to participate in a peaceful street protest experience. Why did my grandmother buy the purchase of gold necklace and bracelet she had never seen? At this time, it began to become interesting, it changed my concept of wealth – the legal currency, only in support of its system exists only useless. Therefore, the lack of diversified financial investment path of the people, will be the biggest victims of the crisis.n
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nKai Linn
nAfter returning to his hometown of Malaysia, Kai Lin began to look at the country and the Southeast Asian society. She found that although not like the Middle East was so bright war, but Southeast Asia also has its own to face the problem. Many refugees, migrant workers and rural poor did not keep up with the pace of economic development, the vast majority of them did not even have bank accounts.n
nSubsequently, when participating in the activities of the Malaysian social enterprise organization, Kai Lin further recognized that the lack of Pratt u0026 Whitney Finance would make it harder for people without bank accounts to cope with rising living expenses. They have no savings and investment in the pipeline, layoffs and labor market wages caused by a sharp decline in income, all of a sudden put these vulnerable groups into the poverty situation. A volunteer from the local Picha Project told Kai Lin that the refugees in Malaya were simply keeping the cash under the bed. There is no way to borrow, those who engage in micro-enterprises (catering, cleaning services) who can only rely on their own savings to pursue growth, or have to charge a high rate of money lenders borrowing. As for migrant workers, their problems have become more aggravated by the volatility of the exchange rate, and at the expense of intermediary fees calculated by foreign exchange, the rest of the income is simply impossible.n
nBlock chain expert Dave Appleton has the same feeling, he has a very long working experience in Southeast Asia, the local exchange rate was once one of his and friends joking theme. He told the pencil:n
nnWhen I worked in Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia in 1985, the SGD was still comparable to the Malaysian Ringgit (MYR) exchange rate. By 1986, the Singapore dollar began to be stronger than the ringgit. Since then, the odds have steadily declined.n
nAs a funny but stubborn engineering fan, I remember a few years ago that day, when the exchange rate into S $ 100 = 256 ringgit, I made a math joke on the facebook, said the exchange rate is 100 Singapore dollars = 100 (Hex) ringgit (Note: HEX is hexadecimal meaning, hexadecimal 100, equal to 25 hexadecimal 256.). The current exchange rate is S $ 100 = RM 317, which is getting worse for Malaysians. I’m not joking about the exchange rate.n
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nDave Appletonn
And for all this, HelloGold CEO Robin Lee has a deeper feeling, he recalled to the chain chain pencil (ChainB.com), 1997 Asian financial crisis, the Malaysian civilians watched their savings in life, overnight The value has been reduced by several times due to devaluation of the currency (such as Malaysian ringgit, baht and rupiah).n
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nRobin Leen
nThis is Robin Lee often told the team about the scene, is also triggered HelloGold project to create one of the factors. Robin Lee inspires the HelloGold team for the vision of Pratt u0026 Whitney Finance, creating an affordable financial product for a group of unfortunate people. They think of a digital platform to solve the difficult problems of refugees, migrant workers and rural people lack financial inclusion.n
nRobin Lee, on the other hand, was the CFO of the World Gold Council and was involved in the GLD Gold Exchange Fund (ETF) team, and Robin realized that if everyone could save gold, their gold savings would be protected. At the same time, if people save gold for as long as 10 years, the cash return value is very impressive. However, at that time only relatively rich and particularly savvy depositors, have the ability to afford gold. Robin is determined to create his expertise in the World Gold Council to create a stable platform for gold as a savings to bring civilians to Asia. Golden Pratt u0026 Whitney Finance, which gave birth to the HelloGold project, also attracted Kai Lin, Dave Appleton and many people want to change the status quo to join.n
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nHelloGold serves vulnerable groupsn
nHelloGold introduces the pencil to the block chain, the starting point of the project is to create a simple and convenient gold product for everyone, it will bring great changes to the bank account. No bank accounters can do the following with a financial ecosystem backed by gold:n
nn1. Diversified pipelines disperse their savings with reliable assets (gold) to offset inflation and currency devaluation.n
n2. With gold deposit as collateral, access to micro-credit.n
n3. Through the electronic transfer of gold to foreign family members, no need to pay any remittance costs.n
nnThe HelloGold team has built and run a platform that allows Malaysian civilians who have no access to sophisticated financial products to buy gold at an affordable price. The premium is only 2%, not as traditional gold traders Of the 20%.n
nAccording to reports, customers in the platform for each purchase are full of real gold support. Related to the safe collection of gold in Singapore, a comprehensive insurance, gold will not move elsewhere, unless the customer asked to do so.n
nThis platform uses most of today’s Malaysian processes: mobile applications, online banking operations (with cash), trading through the app, viewing purchase history (records), and more. HelloGold is also planning to expand its services to more Southeast Asian countries by the end of this year.n
nAt the same time, the HelloGold team said it is actively trying to increase the value of the service provided, such as allowing its depositors to use their gold for mortgage loans (rather than being forced to buy at low prices) when they need emergency loans. This will ensure that the user gets a price that is more favorable than selling gold through a traditional pawn shop.n
nAnd all this security, will be protected by the block chain technology. Robin Lee believes that block-chain technology will improve security and transparency. Led by Dave Appleton to design and implement zone chains to ensure that HelloGold’s services are consistent, fair, and all transactions can be reliably tracked.n
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nProject prospectsn
nDriving Pratt u0026 Whitney Finance in Southeast Asia, the biggest challenge stemmed from the lack of financial facilities and the lack of confidence in existing banking mechanisms. There is a further obstacle to the lack of formal identity documents for refugees.n
nHelloGold acknowledges that these are important issues that need to be overcome, but that block-chain technology and mobile technology are also providing unprecedented possibilities.n
nIn Southeast Asia, mobile phone penetration is rising, more and more people can access online financial services, no longer need the traditional banking facilities. The success of local M-Pesa and MyCashOnline laid the way for Mobile Mobility Financial Services. Similarly, HelloGold through mobile applications, so that each customer has become a receiving or cash in exchange for the distribution of gold, the establishment of the network, and thus the lack of services to provide financial products. This does not pose a threat to existing financial services, and can provide value for the financial ecosystem services, so that all sectors of society enjoy equal, inclusive financial products and services.n
nAt the same time, block-chain technology is rapidly integrating into mainstream financial services, innovation contracts, contracts and trading controls. It opens up new ways to send value and implement the “Know Your Customer KYC” program. Europe has begun to use block-chain technology to build a financial aid and identity system for refugees. In the context of Southeast Asia, especially in the absence of bank accounts, the understanding of “encrypted money” and “block chain” is very limited, so the use of ‘gold’ as the backing of the chain-chain financial system will be easier to resonate Then
nThrough distributed database identification, dissemination and documentation of information, coupled with gold as a backedive security financial ecosystem, HelloGold said it would be able to provide the promotion of financial industry inclusiveness and security.n
nHowever, Dave Appleton for HelloGold customers, there is also a warning:n
nnWe do not encourage repetitive buying and selling to catch peaks and avoid troughs. This is the practice of profitable frying foreign companies from buying and selling. On the contrary, we encourage customers to turn some of their savings into gold long-term collections, because the historical data has proved that gold has a very reasonable long-term stability value.n
nnAt the end of the interview, Kai Lin said to the block pencil that she looked forward to the day that Malaysian construction workers could easily save some of their savings into the HelloGold account and send the gold on his head to his family in Bangladesh The He does not have to pay any remittance fees, his family can also sell gold in Bangladesh, in exchange for cash to buy daily necessities and delivery fees, or mortgage gold to obtain a small loan to buy electric locomotives. All the procedures are passed through the mobile app and behind the block chain technology. she says:n
nn”Democratization Dataized Mediaization = Pratt u0026 Whitney Finance”n