Introduction about yourself and your company?
My name is Rob Grantham, I am the CEO for Winstantpay. I have been working in Asia for the past 15 years in the banking industry in roles from setting up and running a Commercial Bank to running a systems integration that mainly focused on the banking industry to my current position, being the CEO of a fin-tech company, Winstantpay.
Winstantpay is a fin-tech company that was formed to provide a global network for instant settlement of payments in any currency, anywhere, and anytime. It has the power of SWIFT, Western Union, and Visa / Mastercard without the overhead and at lower fees, while still complying with Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations. Unique features include multi-currency wallets (fiat, crypto), Trusted keys for fraud prevention and Identity management, and sharing.
How are you and your business in this time of crisis?
Like many businesses, we are impacted by the virus but we are in the technology business and therefore we are programmed to fight viruses. Tech companies are concerned about the virus, but we also develop our product to be viral, in a good way, driving technology adoption.
What do you think will happen after all quarantine period will be lifted?
Habits are changing toward more digital interactions. This is a great opportunity for the democratization of blockchain. In particular, the banking industry is already looking to develop a greater emphasis on cashless transactions which is an area where fintech can assist. One of the banker’s rules is “Trust but Verify” as physical verification becomes more onerous comes the opportunity for smart contact to do the job with IOT contact points.
What are the things you’re doing this lockdown period?
We work more efficiently, interact with coworkers, and appreciate time with the family. Yes, the kids may be too much sometimes but having to push back discussions because our colleague is in a plane or sleeping in a different time zone is now less of an issue. During the lockdown our team has been working to introduce our ‘’Tap and Pay” technology to Africa, you may have seen some announcements regarding that on our social media pages.
What are some lessons you’ve learned during this pandemic?
This pandemic has taught us that the new normalcy will likely involve adjusting the way we interact with people. Social distancing will become the standard and more meetings, transactions, interactions, in general, will be done online, rather than in person.
What are the things you’re grateful for?
I am personally grateful for the fact that my family, colleagues, and friends have followed the advice with regards to self-isolation and fingers crossed no one in my immediate circle has developed any of the symptoms for COVID-19.
From a business perspective, we are grateful for the TrustedKey and contactless payment opportunities that we have developed. In Canada, MasterCard and Visa raised the tap limit by 150% from $100 to $250 as a result of COVID-19. This is great for rich countries where everyone has a credit or debit card and most if not all merchants have terminals where consumers can tap and pay. However, what would you do with a merchant that not only cannot afford the point of sale (POS) technology let alone qualify as a merchant under the Visa Mastercard rules? The answer of course is to use the unique features of the Winstantpay wallet.
Can you please share some stories of what you’re doing during ECQ?
Apart from working remotely which is no longer a 9 to 5 job I have been spending time helping the children with their online learning and realizing that I have forgotten half of the knowledge I gained that I learned at school with regards to history, chemistry, etc, I have taken up cooking and have spring cleaned both the house and the files on my laptop.
Can you give some advice to other people and businesses out there during this pandemic?
This pandemic will pass but I do think that the way we interact with people and the way we will do business in the future will change and become more distant or online. The loss from the lack of close physical interaction will be dwarfed by the opportunity from digital interaction. The world is open to digital services. Whether you are an accountant, a teacher, a banker, or even a doctor this is the time to grow your digital business and grow globally. The World is yours!
Do you agree that Blockchain can help sustain the economy?
Right now there are a couple of ways that Blockchain can help to sustain the economy. During this time of pandemic we cannot rely on the big banks as much for the settlement of cross border payments which is where blockchain comes in. One of the innovative ways that Winstantpay deals with blockchain is offering a way to collaborate with custodians so that the average person can learn and grow into blockchain and crypto rather than facing the daunting task of learning everything at once.
Today less than 0.5% of the world’s population has a bitcoin account and bitcoin is still the dominating crypto so there is a need for a migration path, a ‘’crypto, and blockchain for dummies’’, if you will and that is what we empower with Winstantpay by creating a simple web wallet. In addition to that, we have the unique capability that is patent-pending to have a wallet in the form of an NFC card or QR code that can be used for the un-banked as well as the under-banked including people who do not know how to use crypto. Now you can have a card where you hold the key to your funds whether it is fiat, crypto, or digital. It is also a game-changer to help reduce the $36 billion dollars of fraud that happens on credit cards today.
We also see an opportunity with our trusted key both during the COVID pandemic and after to help with the difficulty of opening and managing your own wallet, again this is a route for people to grow into cryptocurrency by having a wallet that can be linked to current exchanges and in the form of a card that has the benefit of being able to be used for both crypto and fiat. We are enabling the crypto world to address the 99% of people that don’t have a crypto wallet. Do you have a crypto or digital coin to sell? We give you the tool to sell it to the world with true financial inclusion.
The World is yours! You will hear more about this in the weeks to come.
Where can we follow you and your business?
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