Banking With Pipit Global

One of our portfolio companies Pipit has launched a new product.  It’s designed to work with banks.  The website is here.

It’s pretty slick.  If you are a banker, you ought to book a meeting with them quickly.  Pipit has set up a worldwide payment network.

The Problem:

If you are an immigrant, it can be very difficult to set up a bank account.  It’s not that you are unqualified.  It’s just because of anti-money laundering and know your customer (AMLKYC) regulation that came about because of terrorism, illicit activities, and fraud.  If I moved to London today and wanted to open a bank account, I couldn’t.  Yet, many of these immigrants are creditworthy.  They have steady jobs.  They want to send money home and they have to go to someone like Western Union to do it.  Guess how much of a cut Western Union takes?  It’s not small.  Sometimes up to 10%.

Banks want to set up a relationship with these people because they could become great customers someday.  However, they can’t.

The Solution:

Pipit’s banking solution is an online wallet that isn’t a bank account.  If they want to send money home, instead of sending person to person which would run into AMLKYC regulation, they do it differently.  The person in the home country has a business request a QR code.  Maybe it’s for an electric bill.  Maybe it’s a grocery bill.  Pipit uses the online wallet to ship the money to pay the bill directly.

For banks this is awesome.  It lets them compete head to head with Western Union and other money transfer agents.  At the same time, they are developing a relationship with a person that could become a valuable customer in the future.  If the bank has relationships or branches in the other country, family members there might become customers too.

It’s not expensive software and doesn’t need to integrate with the main software stack of the bank.

Not only will banks be the good guy and solve a problem for an immigrant who has no other choice, but they will be able to tell the world how they are helping the unbanked.  It’s great marketing and great for their image.

Pipit’s software works anywhere in the world.