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Not only is banking not for everyone, accounts are inaccessible to about half of the world. People are too poor, live too far from a bank or don't have the required documentation. Abra, a new startup, makes banking more accessible while completely cutting out the actual bank.
With Abra, all of your banking lives on your phone. You can withdraw funds, deposit cash and send money using the app. There are no ATMs and no bank branches. (The service is different from recent innovations like Simple, Venmo, PayPal and Chase Pay because those all require bank accounts.)
The idea is that all banking should be as easy as sending a text message.
"In a hyper-connected world, it is astounding to me that you can't pick up the phone and instantly send money to any other phone number in the world," said Abra founder Bill Barhydt, a former software engineer for Goldman Sachs based in San Francisco. He presented his company last week at the Exponential Finance conference in New York.
Related: What the future of crime looks like
"Traditional banking is really good at serving the global 5% to 10% of consumers who reach a certain income level," Barhydt said. "The reality is, the majority of the planet is a cash-based economy and banking doesn't work for those people."
Here's how Abra works: Say you need $100 in cash. To get it, you would open the app and find a bank teller near you using your phone's GPS. Bank tellers can be regular people, as well as businesses like convenience stores. If it's a person, they've had a background check through Abra. (The system is similar to how Uber vets drivers.)
https://money.cnn.com/2015/06/08/technology/abra-bank/index.html
Not only is banking not for everyone, accounts are inaccessible to about half of the world. People are too poor, live too far from a bank or don't have the required documentation. Abra, a new startup, makes banking more accessible while completely cutting out the actual bank.
With Abra, all of your banking lives on your phone. You can withdraw funds, deposit cash and send money using the app. There are no ATMs and no bank branches. (The service is different from recent innovations like Simple, Venmo, PayPal and Chase Pay because those all require bank accounts.)
The idea is that all banking should be as easy as sending a text message.
"In a hyper-connected world, it is astounding to me that you can't pick up the phone and instantly send money to any other phone number in the world," said Abra founder Bill Barhydt, a former software engineer for Goldman Sachs based in San Francisco. He presented his company last week at the Exponential Finance conference in New York.
Related: What the future of crime looks like
"Traditional banking is really good at serving the global 5% to 10% of consumers who reach a certain income level," Barhydt said. "The reality is, the majority of the planet is a cash-based economy and banking doesn't work for those people."
Here's how Abra works: Say you need $100 in cash. To get it, you would open the app and find a bank teller near you using your phone's GPS. Bank tellers can be regular people, as well as businesses like convenience stores. If it's a person, they've had a background check through Abra. (The system is similar to how Uber vets drivers.)
https://money.cnn.com/2015/06/08/technology/abra-bank/index.html
