Welcome to the August edition of the DigitalX Newsletter. In this newsletter we will discuss the latest feature that has been added to our mobile application, AirPocket Requests!
If you have any questions or comments for DigitalX, please email us at newsletter@digitalx.com.
Company Update
We are thrilled to announce the latest feature to be added to the AirPocket App, AirPocket Requests. Requests allows users in Latin America to request a mobile top up directly from the AirPocket App. The request feature also allows users to include a personal message to the recipient if they so desire.
Requests is a simple way for AirPocket users in Latin America to ask for a top up when they need it from their friends and family in the United States. Requesting minutes is a user friendly process which can be seen in the layout below.
If a user in the United States does not already have the AirPocket App installed, they will be prompted to install it when they receive a request. When the new user creates an account, the top up request is already waiting in their inbox.
AirPocket is currently being marketed across Mexico, in conjunction with our partner Telefonica, to drive greater downloads of the App. The addition of the requests feature will mean that for every App install in Mexico, we’ll have a corresponding install in the United States for each fulfiller.
We believe that this feature will increase our life time value for each user, while allowing users to become familiar with the AirPocket platform. This means we’ll have established customers engaged and ready to try out new features on the App as we improve the App.
Market Update
The past month showed continued growth in the blockchain sector, buoyed by experiments and investments across a range of applications. Blockchain development firm R3 and its 15 bank consortium announced the completion of two prototypes for trade financing using their Corda distributed ledger platform. The platform shows a promising application of blockchain technology to create self-executing smart contracts that can be used for invoice financing or so-called ‘factoring’, as well as on-blockchain letter of credit transactions.[1]
A study by Juniper Research reported blockchain-related investments reached $300 million in the first 6 months of 2016. This indicates growing interest in the technology for utilisation in remittance applications, identity verification, and smart contracts, and detailed growing investments by numerous banks such as Santander, UBS, and UniCredit.[2]
In a sign of the broadening interest in applications for blockchain technologies, airplane manufacturer Airbus announced it is joining the Hyperledger Project, the Linux foundation’s open-source blockchain development group. The group, formed to push innovation in distributed ledger technology, already boasts membership from IBM, Intel, JP Morgan, and a growing number of other finance and technology companies.[3]
The experiments and investments of the past few months point to both the potential of blockchain tech to generate efficiencies in various areas of finance and trade, as well as the ongoing need to marry these technologies to enterprise-grade security protocols.
DigitalX’s ongoing work developing unique blockchain IP around identity verification and transaction security and efficiency is a step towards meeting these growing challenges and opportunities.
