Velo hopes to open the market from Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific region, taking cross-border payments as the entry point, and successively launching services such as lending, loyalty points and pledges, so as to widely penetrate and accelerate the layout of enterprises and their end users, and finally form a comprehensive Financial territory.
Written by: Karen
The digital currency project Diem (formerly known as Libra) of the technology giant Facebook has triggered a global discussion boom since its inception. Although the project has repeatedly encountered twists and turns after its release due to concerns about privacy, regulation, and currency monopoly, the latest announcement is as early as next year. The form of realization in the plan to officially land in May has also been very different from the original idea. However, this revolution intended to subvert the currency and banking system that has lasted for hundreds of years has quietly begun.
In traditional financial systems such as cross-border payments, the disadvantages of insufficient transaction transparency, high transfer fees, and low penetration rate of bank accounts in some regions have gradually become prominent, and urgently need to be improved and enhanced. Although there are successive start-up companies committed to providing corresponding solutions through blockchain technology, the inherent high price fluctuation characteristics of cryptocurrencies, imperfect technology, and lack of landing support have largely hindered companies from gaining ground. The adoption of chain solutions.
What the blockchain financial protocol Velo Protocol has to do is to complement the shortcomings of the existing financial infrastructure, and to improve and enrich it, to tailor a company for its users to make low-cost transfers with high transparency, A digital credit system with wider coverage and support for asset diversity. In this way, enterprise users can achieve cheaper and faster settlement without direct interaction with Velo technology or VELO tokens, and it can also be bankless Account group provides financial services.
1. Velo’s financial ambitions: Ant Financial in Southeast Asia
Velo was founded by Chatchaval Jiaravanon, a family member of the Chinese multinational giant Chia Tai Group, as the co-founder. The development company is Velo Labs. It hopes to establish an alliance credit transaction network to enable partners to conduct transactions safely and efficiently between each other. Value transfer, currently mainly provides services for remittance partners in Southeast Asia, and will later expand to the Asia-Pacific region and other regions.
To build Velo into “Ant Financial in Southeast Asia”, a wide range of application scenarios and landing support, a rich business network ecosystem and technology are the keys to victory. Velo’s confidence and confidence in the financial field are obvious. This confidence comes from the support of the company’s CP Group and its deep partner Lightnet’s huge business network ecology, and the Stellar (Stellar) developed and designed for instant payment and transfer in the blockchain field. ) The blessing of the network and the core team.
1. Backed by Chia Tai Group, retail line + business line plus application scenarios and landing support
In addition to Xie Zhan, a member of the CP Group, who is the co-founder of Velo, Velo has a deeper relationship with CP Group. CP Group has directly invested US$20 million in Velo and held a large amount of equity in the latter. In addition, CP Group will also use Velo for fund management, trade financing and settlement, and provide Velo with landing support through its comprehensive business and retail layout.
Before understanding how CP Group will provide application scenarios and utility support for Velo, let’s first understand the business and investment landscape of CP Group.
Chia Tai Group was founded by the Thai Chinese Xie brothers (Xie Yichu and Xie Shaofei) in Bangkok, Thailand in 1921. It is the largest commercial group in Thailand. Its businesses involve agriculture, animal husbandry, food, retail, finance, supply chain, telecommunications, real estate, media, and education With multiple business lines such as pharmaceuticals and pharmaceuticals, as of 2020, it has invested in 21 countries, making it one of the largest and most influential corporate groups in Southeast Asia.
It is worth noting that CP Group is also the first foreign-invested group to invest in China. It is also one of the foreign companies with the largest investment projects and the largest amount of investment in China. It is currently increasing investment in China. According to public information display , CP Group’s investment in China’s nearly $ 6 billion, the establishment of enterprises amounted to more than 200.
From the perspective of segmented retail, CP Group’s business and retail layout are fully capable of providing Velo with core competitiveness. CP Group owns more than 12,000 7-11 convenience stores in Thailand. The application for the acquisition of Tesco Lotus Supermarket has also been approved by the Thai government. It also owns mainstream shopping malls and supermarkets such as CP Plaza. Its retail business in China also includes CP Lotus, Various business formats such as Chia Tai Premium Fresh, Chia Tai Catering, and Chia Tai E-commerce.
There is no doubt that CP Group’s huge retail, telecommunications and business matrix can provide a wide range of application scenarios and sufficient landing support for the development of Velo.
2. In-depth partner Lightnet’s huge business network ecosystem
Velo’s in-depth partner Lightnet Group’s huge business network is another highlight of Velo. Lightnet, headquartered in Singapore, was also co-founded by Xie Zhan, a member of the CP Group and former investment banker Tridbodi Arunanondchai, hoping to provide inclusive financial services and low cost to East Asia and Southeast Asia through a global network of trusted financial service partners , Efficient and instant cross-border remittance service.
Lightnet’s cross-border transfer solution
In addition, Lightnet’s cross-border remittance ecosystem is built using the Velo protocol, which is the first real-world use case of Velo Labs’ blockchain solution.
Regarding Lightnet’s business network ecology, we can find answers from Lightnet’s investors, financial partners, and trusted partners.
In January of this year, Lightnet completed a US$31.2 million Series A financing funded by a number of large companies and institutions. The main investors include UOB Venture Management and Hanwha Investment and Securities. The investment companies belong to the United Overseas Bank Group of Singapore and the large Korean company Hanwha Group. Other investors include Wanxiang’s HashKey Capital, 7-11 holding banks Seven Bank, Uni-President, Singapore Encrypted Digital Fund Signum Capital, and Singapore Block Chain investment institutions Du Capital and Hopeshine Ventures.
Among them, Seven Bank has more than 20,000 7-11 convenience stores in Japan and more than 70,000 stores worldwide; Uni-President Asset Holdings is the investment arm of Uni-President Enterprises Corp. The latter also directly or indirectly owns about 9,000 7-11 convenience stores in parts of mainland China, Taiwan and the Philippines, and hundreds of Starbucks stores in Taiwan.
In addition to establishing contacts with investors, Lightnet has also recently reached partnerships with the Swiss compliant digital asset bank SEBA Bank and Thailand’s first local bank, the Thai Commercial Bank (SCB). Among them, SEBA Bank will become Lightnet. The bank’s counterparty to the group provides the only settlement, communication and remittance services for legal currency and digital assets; Lightnet will provide users with cross-border remittance services through cooperation with the Thai Commercial Bank.
In an interview with CNBC, Lightnet Group CEO Tridbodi Arunanondchai also stated that “Forex Bank will become one of Lightnet’s settlement partners, responsible for payment and clearing payments. Through this partnership, Lightnet can access the benefits of more than 24 banks in Thailand. Account, and any user who has registered with PromptPay, a payment service provider supported by the Thai government.”
It is conceivable that CP Group’s extensive retail business layout and sufficient landing support for Velo, as well as Lightnet’s huge business ecosystem, will bring Velo tremendous incremental space in terms of corporate partners and users and application scenarios. Further assist Velo to achieve inclusive finance.
3. Supported by the main payment Stellar blockchain
The business model determines the height of the ceiling of a project, and technology is the core competitiveness of a project. Velo is supported by the Stellar blockchain technology for location-based payment. VELO tokens and digital credit assets are issued based on Stellar.
The reason why Velo chose Stellar was mainly due to factors such as high performance, low cost, and financial vision in line with it.
Blockchain technology comparison, source: Velo
From the perspective of network performance, the Stellar blockchain can complete 1,000 transactions per second, far better than Bitcoin and Ethereum, and is particularly suitable for application scenarios such as remittance and payment. In contrast, the number of transactions that Bitcoin can process per second is only a single number, and the current Ethereum can only process 20 transactions per second.
Stellar also has an advantage over Bitcoin and Ethereum in transaction costs, and is slightly lower than rival Ripple under the same performance. As we all know, since the beginning of this year, the DeFi boom has boosted Ethereum’s transaction costs to peak in the third quarter of this year. Bitcoin has also increased transaction costs due to the increase in network activity, which is more expensive for small payments.
In addition, Stellar’s goal is to build a bridge between people and banks and payment systems, and also directly serve the people who do not have bank accounts, which fits exactly with Velo’s vision of financial inclusion.
Based on but not limited to Stellar blockchain technology, Velo can also use any smart contract platform to build smart contracts, such as Ethereum, smart financial service platform Evrynet or other EVM-compatible public chains. Velo will also jointly develop a cross-chain protocol “Warp” with Evrynet to connect the Stellar blockchain for digital asset transfer and a smart contract chain that can build a digital storage system.
4. Core team and company culture
The chairman of Velo and Lightnet and the CEO of Velo, Chatchaval Jiaravanon, is the son of Xie Zhongmin, the executive chairman of CP Group, and a member of the board of directors of True Corporation, Thailand’s only national integrated telecommunications operator under CP Group. The chairman of consumer finance company AEON Thana Sinsap and securities company Finansia Syrus Securities also holds important positions in dozens of companies. In addition, Xie Zhan personally acquired the famous financial magazine “Fortune” at the end of 2018.
Tridbodi Arunanondchai (Khun Beam), another co-founder and vice chairman of Velo and Lightnet, is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor, and the co-founder and chief commercial officer of the financial technology company Money Table Public Company Limited. The MoneyTable platform enables company employees to easily and securely explore personal financial choices, use big data and machine learning algorithms to analyze applicants’ credit score information, and use blockchain and decentralized data networks to provide additional protection. It is worth noting that Khun Beam has also been actively investing in technology startups across multiple fields and is also an investment partner of Kejora Venture, an Indonesian venture capital firm with more than US$200 million in asset management.
In addition to its core members, Velo also has a number of consultants from Stellar, Lightnet Group, Pantera Capital, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in terms of token economy and commerce, including Stellar Development Fund co-founders Jed McCaled and Chief economist David Mazières, Signum Capital founder John Ng Pangilin, MIT professor Robert Townsen and other industry experts.
These consultants will directly provide guidance to the Velo team in terms of technology, business, and token economic models, so as to promote the smooth development of Velo technology and the efficient promotion of business.
On the other hand, company culture is an important cornerstone for a company’s sustainable development and growth. Velo’s corporate culture concept of “Efficient iteration, rapid growth, and using blockchain to make inclusive finance within reach” can be derived from its commitment to becoming a bridge between traditional finance and the encrypted world and a network system that maximizes the benefits of multiple participants Be fully reflected. Velo’s strong core team and this leading company culture will become the source of power for the company to move forward.
2. Velo’s operation mode and advantages
To put it simply, Velo is a decentralized settlement network that is initially empowered by business partners in Southeast Asia. Banks, deposit and withdrawal networks, e-wallets, and DeFi protocols can all be used in the Velo network at low cost, simple and secure. And efficient way to transfer value.
Velo’s financial network ecology includes the Velo protocol, VELO tokens, and Velo’s digital credit. Among them, the Velo agreement consists of two parts: a digital credit issuance mechanism and a digital reserve system. It is expected to be fully online at the end of the first quarter of 2021. Velo’s ultimate goal is to establish a global legal currency, digital credit and VELO token access Golden Network brings real-world liquidity and interoperability to all trusted business partners and users.
Velo token acquisition channel, source: TokenInsight
Velo’s advantages can be seen from the way Velo works. Compared with projects such as World Wire, the IBM payment network that also uses Stellar blockchain technology, Velo acts as a bridge, allowing direct real-time transfers between banks and non-banks. There is no need to use USD collateral for credit and settlement. In addition, the Velo network allows universal credit exchanges in any currency between any networks.
Coupled with the support of many major corporate groups in Asia, a strong leadership team, and the support of Lightne’s huge business ecosystem, as well as the inherent advantages of supporting diversified assets and low cost, it will provide strong guarantee and support for its rapid development.
3. Velo’s financial layout: focusing on cross-border payments
Velo ecosystem and financial layout
Velo hopes to open the market from Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific region, taking cross-border payments as the entry point, and successively launching services such as lending, loyalty points and pledges, so as to widely penetrate and accelerate the layout of enterprises and their end users, and finally form a comprehensive Financial territory.
Cross-border remittance is the current development focus of Velo. Remittance operators can participate in the Velo ecosystem in two ways:
- Become a trusted business partner;
- Cooperate with trusted business partners.
The second method will directly relax the requirements for remittance operators, that is, smaller remittance operators can indirectly benefit from the Velo ecosystem by signing contracts with existing trusted business partners in the Velo ecosystem.
And users of all these operators can enjoy efficient, fast and low-cost financial services without touching VELO tokens, smart contracts, blockchain or even digital credit, thereby achieving a win-win situation for all parties.
It is not difficult to imagine that when Velo’s trusted cooperative companies and the number of companies that have signed contracts with these companies increase, the number of end users of Velo will also increase rapidly. At this time, the amount of VELO tokens mortgaged by companies will also increase, thereby Form a virtuous circulatory system.
In addition to the in-depth cooperation partner Lightnet with the Swiss compliant digital asset bank SEBA Bank and the Thai Commercial Bank, Velo’s commercial progress in the field of cross-border remittance and payment is also quite rapid. Last month, Velo Labs and Lightnet Group and Visa has reached a global cooperation to jointly develop Asian payment solutions, allowing participating banks, remittance operators and other financial service providers to conduct near-real-time global transactions.
In addition, in terms of asset custody, digital asset custodian BitGo will provide digital asset custody services for Velo Labs and its ecological partners.
4. Velo’s vision: radiate 1 billion unbanked people in Asia Pacific
At the beginning of its establishment, Velo’s vision was to bring more than one billion unbanked people in the Asia-Pacific region into the global financial system through its Trusted Partner Network (Trusted Partner Network), and to provide enterprise end users with high transparency, Low-cost financial services and further strengthen the Velo ecosystem.
As Xie Zhan said , “At present, there are still more than 170 million people in Southeast Asia who do not have a bank card or a bank account, so they cannot enjoy basic financial services. Velo is using cross-regional payment technology to provide cheaper and better services. It is provided to all types of non-financial households in Southeast Asia, and will be expanded to other regions in the future.”
In addition, in the Velo ecosystem, VELO tokens will become a “bridge asset” connecting the traditional financial market and the cryptocurrency world, and at the same time will promote the formation of a financial system that maximizes the interests of all participants, achieving mutual benefit and win-win results.
In general, at present, Velo has core competitiveness in technology, team, and support companies. The financial network ecosystem has begun to take shape. It also has sufficient application support in the fields of remittance, payment, retail, and telecommunications. It is expected to accelerate the realization of generalization. Hui financial vision.
