Velo Labs is building out the biggest payment network in Southeast Asia to improve remittance and money transfer markets. As some may know, today’s remittance system involves hurdles of middlemen who each charge high fees. This makes remittance extremely expensive and slow.
Velo Labs is solving this problem by allowing people to transfer value between each other in a timely and transparent manner without middlemen using digital credits that are pegged to any currency and are collateralized by a cryptocurrency (VELO) issued on Stellar.
What initially got me to look deeper into Velo Labs was their company’s backing. It’s founded by Chatchaval Jiaravanon. This may not be a household name to most, but he is a prominent entrepreneur in Asia. He sits on the board of lots of corporations including True Corporation, the leading Telecom Group in Thailand, and owns Fortune Magazine. His family also owns the CP Group: the largest conglomerate in Thailand.
The CP Group is also Velo Lab’s largest backer. The company owns all the 7-Elevens (over 20,000!) in Thailand and is one of the largest conglomerates in the world.
Recently we spoke to Mr. Gaurang Desai on the Velo Economics team about how remittance currently works in Southeast Asia
Below are some key points we covered in the interview:
- Problems with the existing international remittance system in Southeast Asia
- How Velo Labs fits into the current system
- The advantages of the Velo Protocol over current remittance methods
- What makes the Velo Protocol different from competing protocols
- How many money transfer operators and agents are currently on the network
Velo Labs is hosting an AMA on Stellar’s subreddit on August 7th. So feel free to ask Mr. Michael Cowans, Velo Lab’s Commercial Advisor