Leaf is bringing the financially excluded into the formal economy by creating a virtual bank for refugees, migrants, and cross border traders. Blockchain backed and accessible from a mobile device, Leaf offers secure storage and transport of assets across borders—no smartphone required.

With Leaf, users can travel without cash and rest assured that their money will be safe and accessible no matter where they go. Friends and family around the world can also deposit into a refugee’s account, regardless of location. Leaf gives users a better start with financial security and lessens their dependence on host countries. Leaf ultimately creates an economic identity that customers can use to establish themselves in a new country.

The Leaf Wallet has been live since September 2020 in Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya for smartphones (iPhone and Android) and basic phones. Currently, most of our customers are refugees in Rwanda (55%). In addition to Leaf users reporting feeling safe crossing the border for the first time and being able to access digital financial services, in our first three months of operations we:

Registered 1,410 customers
Completed 6,102 transactions on the Stellar blockchain worth $55,759
Directly helped 500 refugees during COVID by providing financial assistance

https://leafglobalfintech.com/

• Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Kenya
• Rwanda
• Uganda
• United Republic of Tanzania

• Women
• Migrants
• Refugees and internally displaced people
• Remote and rural communities
• Cross-border traders

As Leaf uses existing mobile networks as the infrastructure for providing services, it operates almost entirely virtually instead of relying on a heavy physical presence resulting in low operational costs.. We have also prioritized digital, low-cost customer acquisition strategies, enabling us to expand while maintaining a minimal physical presence.

As we expand, all we need is a partner licensed financial institution and a payments provider. Our telco aggregator gives us access to 18 countries and our partnership with Ecobank gives us access to 33 countries across Africa.

We have additionally partnered with a payments provider to allow cash-in/cash-out in Chile to serve the Venezuelan migrant population.

Leaf’s work in East Africa can and must be replicated. The refugee crisis has only been exacerbated by the current environmental and political climate. The UN has designated 79 million as refugees, and there are 100 million living on the verge of crisis.

The pandemic is accelerating the adoption of mobile money and digital financial services, as people look for ways to make transactions without leaving their homes or dealing with cash. Now more than ever, digital inclusion is seen as indispensable for short-term relief and as a central element of broad-based, sustainable recovery efforts.

Due to a virtual operating model that cuts out many of the costs associated with sending money, we have low margins. Leaf combines three primary revenue streams to ensure short and long-term profit: 1) transaction fees; 2) foreign exchange spread between currencies; and 3) interest earned from investing the savings float. Additionally, being built on Stellar—a blockchain designed specifically for cross-border payments in emerging markets— enables us to commit transactions in 3-5 seconds with minimal costs (a fraction of a cent). Therefore, our projections estimate that the company will break even at 7,400 accounts at the end of year two.

In the future, we will continue to grow with our customers by offering loans and insurance, whereby we will gain additional revenue streams.

The Leaf Wallet promotes many WSIS values, specifically those of information and communication infrastructure, capacity building, and building confidence and security in the use of ICTs.