Posted by Author: Mohamed Hamza Ghaouri, Intern at FINTERRA
E-wallets have proliferated in the world over the past few years, with new platforms emerging every now and then. This upward trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Finterra is no exception as it anticipated this trend towards digitization three years ago and included the building of e-wallet services, “FINVault” among its variety of product offerings. According to a recent report, mobile wallets attract 140 million new users every year, while another study estimates that the industry’s market size will reach USD14 trillion by 2022. In Malaysia alone, to date, there are more than 50 e-wallets in operation, occupying nearly 20% of Malaysia’s fintech space.
This concept has been widely discussed, especially due to the rapid and growing global use of digital tools for managing and exchanging money in trading, investing, and daily life. The accelerated growth of electronic wallets in Malaysia is in line with the central bank’s goal of transforming Malaysia into a cashless society. In fact, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) have recently established an action plan outlining its goal of increasing the number of electronic payment transactions per capita from 44 to 200 transactions. From its side, the Malaysian government have announced an allocation of RM750 million to promote the adoption of e-wallets in Malaysia as part of a series of economic stimulus to revitalise the economy crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
E-wallet is the digital equivalent of a real wallet, except that the money is digital and it works like an app on a smartphone. Like regular wallets, it will need funds to operate and transact. This can be done by filling the wallet with cash through credit cards, debit cards, and online bank transfers. E-wallet has mainly two components, software and information. The software component stores personal information and provides security and encryption of the data while the information component is a database of details provided by the user. However, one of the most secure and encrypted methods is that provided by blockchain technology which is considered as a cryptographic database technology.
Accordingly, Finterra offers a digital wallet “FINVault” designed with the highest security standards with an additional layer of security and traceability using blockchain. FINVault is a next-generation blockchain-based e-wallet which is able to manage currencies and digital assets. With the aim of eliminating the need for people to carry traditional wallets, FINVault is a type of prepaid account in which users can store their money for any future online transaction. It can only be unlocked using a 6-digit passcode or fingerprint or even facial recognition designed with simplicity and ease of use allowing for a great user experience.
It also facilitates sending money to known contacts and peer-to-peer transactions between unknown parties. To do this, FINVault uses one of the following two methods, namely paying by QR code for one-time payments and sending directly to new beneficiaries by adding them to your network.
FINVault is Finterra’s Islamic social finance compatible electronic wallet. Designed with simplicity and usability in mind without compromising the cybersecurity of the wallet. In fact, Finterra introduces an additional layer of security and traceability. In order to protect users against fraudulent activity, each transaction must be revalidated using the previously selected security measure (access code, fingerprint scan or facial recognition). Ease of use is fairly comprehensive with the market standard, while FINVault supports payments and digital asset transfers over the blockchain, making it more robust and traceable than most wallet systems in the world.
An important feature of FINVault is that it gives the ability to make donations (as Sadaqah and Waqf). This feature helps various NGOs to create, operate, and fund their causes. These causes can be created right from the mobile app and the admin can approve the causes which enable the wallet to display the causes to the users and advertise the same to the masses in order to help to raise funds for the project directly from the mobile without using any other external support.
By storing all of a consumer’s payment information securely and compactly, FINVault largely eliminate the need to carry a physical wallet. Here are some notable benefits of using it:
- Reducing theft and fraud: It allows to reduce the theft associated with physical cash.
- More practical: Using FINVault saves time. It eliminates the need to type in bank account numbers for online transfers or physically count invoice changes.
- More mindful: FINVault allows users to track expenses directly from the app. It also provides an analysis of spending habits using Finterra’s analytics platform to provide actionable insights into personal spending habits.
- Safer: With the high risk of transmission of Covid-19, FINVault has flourished as it minimizes contact and breaks the traditional monetary circle which can be a medium for the circulation of the virus. Contactless and cashless payment is an alternative for those who prefer to stay away from others.
FINVault follows a tiered system architecture namely Data Tier, Business Tier, Security Tier and User Interface Tier. These tiers are meant to clearly bifurcate aspects of the system in a seamless fashion while achieving the desired level of modularity and scalability. Each of these tiers contain multiple services and modules as illustrated in the folowing diagram.
With the Finterra Digital Wallet, you can send and receive ETH, BTC, BCH, GTX, and FIN via your laptop or mobile phone. All digital accounts in the Finterra Digital wallet are stored in an encrypted format on the client. Transactions are built and signed by the client, so no vital or sensitive information is ever passed across the networ
References
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/digital-wallet.asp
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