Oscar Wilde once said, “When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.”
Money. No matter who you are or where you’re from; affects your quality of life from the roof over your head to the opportunities that are available to you.
And access to Credit plays an exceptional role towards one’s financial status.
You see…
When someone has the ultimate privilege to use credit, they have the ability to leverage on long-term opportunities and build wealth and financial success. And for anyone in the West, this process is a walk in the park. They have access to loans, credit cards, and mortgages in an instance; for as long as they have some good credit history.
But in places like Nigeria and Kenya, this reality is quite different.
For many residents, credit is predominantly out of reach. Most families have to rely on informal lending, cash savings and small mobile money loans just to get by.
And when granted these loans, they’re stuck paying astonishingly higher rates through informal creditors.
Is it unfair? Yes!
And here lies the problem:
The thing about credit in the modern society is that it’s profoundly centralized. At the core of it, large financial institutions decide who is “creditworthy” and who isn’t. And in emerging markets, millions of entrepreneurs, small and medium business owners still remain invisible at a global financial capacity.
Here’s how it looks:
Picture a farmer based in Kenya who secures a loan from a local fin-tech company. He repays it diligently, proving himself as a trustworthy borrower. However, his track record of financial trust and responsibility still remains invisible; unrecorded in any public database and ultimately inaccessible at a global scale.
And hence this farmer is effectively excluded from accessing credit beyond his local community and region.
Gluwa… The Savior?
This fast-rising financial platform is built on blockchain technology and seeks to merge global capital with emerging market investment opportunities; with a vision to build an inclusive financial system.
***Its mission? ***… To build a borderless finance system; public, transparent and accessible to everyone despite their geographical location.
What does this mean for the future?
A world where ideas, dreams and ambitions aren’t limited by bureaucracy, geography, or paywalls. A world where a small business owner in Nigeria can access credit from investors across the globe with just a few taps on smartphone.
This new reality is at works; all thanks to Gluwa.
My first encounter with Gluwa came from a simple Google search. While there are tons of fin-tech companies throwing big empty promises, Gluwa comes with a different “pov”.
They don’t seek to re-invent the wheel.
Their approach is simple.
A global-based credit system accessible to everyone.
And being a Kenyan resident myself, this approach is pure gold.
What does Gluwa really do?
Gluwa was founded by Tae Oh, back in 2016. The vision behind its creation was to create secure and efficient blockchain-based solutions to solve real-world problems.
Essentially, Gluwa positions itself as a “borderless financial platform”.
But how does this look like in everyday life, and especially for people in emerging economies?
Imagine this scenario:
An individual who’s always paid their bills on time, refunded small loans and generally managed their monies responsibly. However, none of these factors matter because this individual resides in a country where “trad-banks” systems barely capture one’s financial reputation.
Unfortunately, this is a reality that’s far too common for millions of people coming from emerging and developing markets.
And this is where Gluwa comes in.
Its platform solves one big major issue in the financial space.
Global access to credit.
Think of it as a “financial passport”- that stores an extensive record of your creditworthiness that’s not tied to one’s local bank, geography, or even a government’s economic policies.
While utilizing Creditcoin’s protocol, Gluwa activates cross-chain credit transactions hence building users’ credit history existing on a publicly accessible and verifiable ledger.
The Creditcoin Architecture
While Gluwa is the face of a borderless finance system, Creditcoin is the underlying blockchain network that makes the operations of Gluwa possible.
The Creditcoin protocol was built by Gluwa on Apr 4th, 2019.
Creditcoin functions from its own blockchain network that’s exclusively built to handle any credit-related transactions and data.
To fully understand the role of Creditcoin, picture it this way:
When you as an individual apply for a loan at your local bank, there’s a whole invisible ecosystem working behind the scenes consisting of verification systems, credit bureaus, and risk assessment “algos”.
These underlying fin-tech systems took decades to build and are worth billions of dollars. Now imagine you’re replicating this same trust infrastructure that cuts across every blockchain, every currency, and every financial system at a global capacity.
That’s the entire use-case of Creditcoin.
Most blockchains tend to serve multiple use-cases; however, Creditcoin’s architecture is designed to cater for loan origination, credit scoring, reputation management, and repayment tracking.
This approach enables scalability, security and efficiency while handling credit-related activities.
With the blockchain’s Proof of Work consensus mechanism, the network security remains protected while also maintaining decentralization. This factor represents Creditcoin’s commitment to proven blockchain security models and system.
At its core, the blockchain-based network is the element that builds Gluwa to be permissionless, borderless and public with the following factors:
- Transparency: One’s loan records can be verified without having to rely on a single company’s word.
- Immutability: With blockchain, once a record is written, it can’t be tampered with. This plays a big part in establishing trust.
- Global Access: A borrower in Kenya and a lender in UAE can conveniently connect without any necessary traditional intermediaries.
Gluwa’s Real World Impact
Gluwa is currently in partnership with Aella (a fin-tech company based in Nigeria providing digital financial services) that caters to over two-million users across Africa.
These are not just mere numbers on a spreadsheet.
Let’s say, Talia from Lagos intends to borrow monies from a local fin-tech app to acquire more capital to expand her food stall. The Fintech app records her loan agreements and repayments exclusively on Gluwa.
This way:
- If she abides by the loan agreements and pays on time, her repayment history becomes a verifiable, and permanent record via Gluwa.
- And later on, if she intends to get a bigger loan, maybe from another lender, and even in another country, the lender can conveniently check her blockchain-based credit history and feel confident enough to lend her.
Essentially, it’s like a universal financial reputation card that accessible across borders and financial platforms.
These are dreams that are being funded.
Gluwa’s Personalized Approach
Something that stands out about Gluwa is its personalized approach.
A user has a smooth experience exploring Gluwa’s ecosystem. They’ve managed to customize their block-chain based technology to be entirely invisible to an end user.
Because, when it really comes down to it, people rarely care about the underlying technology of a product; but only how it can solve their problem.
Ideally, it’s a real-world tool built for real people with real needs.
Their mobile app delivers a user-friendly interface; helping users manage their financial circumstances from accessing credit to identifying investment opportunities.
The problem of portability with financial reputation is major in small and emerging markets. Typically, people will either have limited data from financial institutions or lack a credit history entirely.
And Gluwa gives these local users the privilege to carry their personalized financial reputation with them whether they’re seeking opportunities in Kampala or San Francisco.
The Snow-ball Effect of Financial Inclusion
Whenever financial barriers are brought down, new channels of financial empowerment are created.
You see…
When an individual from an emerging region/market gets access to credit; they’re investing these monies into education, local businesses and contributing towards growth of their economies.
The more people in these developing markets have access to credit, the higher the economic growth.
As of the writing of this, Gluwa reports a user-base of over 2 million users across the globe.
These are real people utilizing Gluwa’s technology to build and impact their local communities, financial futures, and unlock potential opportunities in their respective regions.
What does this mean for Investors?
From an investor’s perspective, Gluwa presents a lucrative proposition. The financial platform connects global capital to emerging economies investment opportunities.
But the real compelling factor isn’t really the potential profits, but the true alignment of these profits with purpose.
This is a factor that ethical investors are always seeking to have real impact towards real peoples’ lives.
When one invests through Gluwa’s financial platform, you’re directly participating in a financial system creating opportunities for people who have been marginalized and systematically excluded financially; all while making tangible profits.
Ultimately, there’s a profoundly satisfying knowing that one’s investment is directly connected to help someone build a better life.
For example:
Gluwa’s Bond Account Offering offers competitive yields to Investors while they’re funding loans to people and small businesses in emerging markets.
Fundamentally, its capitalism with a conscience, and in today’s world, it couldn’t be more important.
The Challenges they're tackling
Taking on such a transformative journey comes with its own set of challenges. Gluwa isn’t just innovating a new economy, its disrupting old financial systems.
Hence, it faces complex regulatory environments, the obligation to build trust in communities that have been betrayed by local financial institutions, and the duty to educate users who’ve never had access to digital financial services.
Nevertheless, Gluwa’s approach to these challenges is simply top-notch. They quickly recognized that taking on this role requires more than having a good app and employing advanced blockchain technology.
Consequently, they’ve partnered with local organizations that bring on a deeper understanding of cultural contexts and long-term commitment to the communities they serve.
What the Future Looks like
When I take look at Gluwa’s Course, I see more than just a mere block-chain-based fin-tech company.
I see the early stages of what could become one of the biggest and fundamental shifts in how we relate to credit, financial services and economic opportunity.
I see a Financial Revolution.
Imagine a world where your financial standing is easily portable, where access to capital isn’t determined by your zip code, and where investment opportunities are accessible to anyone with an internet access and the willingness to participate.
Gluwa is working towards this ideal world every day.
Should this matter to you?
Now, you may wonder- Why should Gluwa’s mission matter to me?
Here’s how I see it…
Whether you realize it or not, you’re part of a global economy by default- The coffee you drink, the technology you use, the clothes you wear; it’s all connected.
And Gluwa is building a financial infrastructure that makes those connections equitable and beneficial for everyone involved.
When someone in Nairobi can access capital to grow their business, when someone in Lagos can prove their “credit-worthiness” to international lenders, when all barriers to financial participation are brought down- we all reap the benefits from the increased innovation and economic activity.
In-Conclusion
Gluwa is pushing the radical idea that credit access should be available to anyone, anywhere, who demonstrates creditworthiness and financial responsibility.
Nonetheless, what excites me the most...
…is how Gluwa have managed to simplify complex blockchain technology to serve simple human needs.
You do not need to have expertise in block-chain technology.
They’re simply asking you…
To imagine a world where financial opportunities aren’t limited by the inconveniences of geography and bureaucracy.
Gluwa has discovered a real-world financial problem and built a solution that’s; people first. This is not just good business- it’s the kind of needle-moving innovation that actually changes lives.
Moving forward, in a world that’s never been more connected; platforms like Gluwa follow the concept that technology’s highest intention isn’t just to innovate new products, but it’s to create opportunities guaranteed to elevate humanity. And in that mission, Gluwa is succeeding in ways that go far beyond user metrics and transactions.
Ultimately, the true measure of Gluwa’s success is found in the stories of the financially marginalized people whose lives have been made better by access to flexible financial services previously unattainable.
And these stories are being written; one transaction at a time.