Meru - SCF#22: 

Link - https://dashboard.communityfund.stellar.org/scfawards/scf-22/communityvote/suggestion/453

Award: 76,840 USD.

The main goal of this project was to allow the possibility to each user to open a US bank account in Meru that settles in USDC for non-US resident freelancers from Latam, which allows them to receive ACH/Wire payments from US employers and freelancers platforms such as UpWork, Workana, Freelancer.com, Fiverr, Rippling, etc., or even content creation platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, etc. This bank account is personalized for each user in their name and has a routing number and a unique account number. We finally completed this and we are in a "controlled rollout" phase of this product for our customers as requested by our banking partner. You can see a demo of this in the following link https://youtube.com/shorts/s6JjWYd29eE

Another goal was to integrate with Merkle Science platform, a platform for wallets, blockchain addresses, and transaction monitoring to strengthen our compliance and AML program. We completed this integration and this is up and running, and this is considered highly important by our financial partners because of the fact that Meru wallets are non-custodial wallets and we need to control the source of funds. You can see this integration in the following image: https://res.cloudinary.com/dcsu3rmrj/image/upload/v1710704415/Captura_de_pantalla_2024-03-17_a_la_s_2.40.02_p._m._qnywz5.png

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Meru - SCF#13:

Link - https://dashboard.communityfund.stellar.org/scfawards/scf-13/awardcompleted/suggestion/272 - SCF#13 Award: 50,000 USD. 

The main goal of the project was to enable a Mastercard card associated with the USDC balance deposited in the user's Meru wallet. After a lot of learning about the connection between the crypto world and traditional financial services, we were able to launch the cards for users from Colombia, Venezuela, México, and Guatemala, through Mastercard. You can see the product running in the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loemMiszYhM

Another goal was to launch our Payroll solution for companies to pay their employees in Latin America using Soroban, but due to the user demand, and as we communicated to the Stellar team through Submittable, we shortcutted the process using Stellar Payments infrastructure, until the Soroban ecosystem was in production. The Payroll product can be found up and running at the following link (https://payroll.getmeru.com). We already have 5 business customers using it (https://quikpago.com/).

In the meantime, we were recipients of the inaugural MoneyGram Access Marketing Awards Program, expanding our footprint to all countries of Latam.

Product?

Meru is a non-custodial USDC digital wallet built and designed for freelancers and remote workers from Latin America, built over Stellar. Now we want to expand this to other emerging countries, such as India, Pakistan, the Philipines, Bangladesh, etc., who have a very important presence of freelancer workers who work not only for the US but also for European companies. For this, we need:

1. Complement our KYC partner capabilities to have global coverage. 
2. Enable SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) virtual bank accounts for non-EU residents, that settle in EURC (Stellar).
3. Connect other on-ramp and off-ramp rails for countries outside Latam, starting with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines.
4. Enable Mastercard/Visa issuance for global customers.

Problem?

Regarding studies around 1.56Bn people work as self-employed or freelancers in the world (https://techjury.net/blog/freelance-statistics/). Freelancers and remote workers commonly engage with remote employers through platforms like UpWork, Workana, Freelancer.com, Fiverr, etc. But getting paid internationally is still too hard. Most platforms pay in dollars or euros and leave the worker to figure out how to get that money into local currency to be available to spend on essentials like rent, food, medicines, wifi, etc., losing money paying high fees, having to use multiple platforms to convert the money to local currency, waiting long times, or being scammed. 

Meru Benefits?

1.- Receive payments through US / SEPA virtual bank accounts.

2.- Receive payments worldwide through payment links (TDC, crypto, local bank transfers)

3.- Save funds in USDC/EURC

4.- Withdraw funds to local bank accounts.

5.- Withdraw funds in cash worldwide through Moneygram

6.- Spend their funds through a Visa/Mastercard virtual/physical cards

7.- Withdraw funds to crypto

8.- Pay utility bills.

9.- Send USDC/EURC for free to other Meru users

How does it work with Stellar?

We have been working with SDF for more than 3 years. Meru has been built on Stellar. All the products offered by us are running on Stellar. When a Fiat payment is received it is converted to USDC/EURC on Stellar and deposited in a non-custodial wallet owned by each user. We perform gas sponsorship, and fee bump transactions, to simplify adoption, and additionally, we have a key management and recovery system based on the SEP-30 protocol.  We have our own instance of Horizon. We use SEP-6 and SEP-24 to integrate with Stellar anchors, such as Moneygram.

[Deliverable 1]

   - Description: Integrate with new KYC partner/AML with global presence.

   - How to measure: Contract signed, onboarding app system connected to the appropriate KYC partner depending on country of residence or document of the freelancer.

   - Estimated date of completion: 05/15/2024

   - Budget: 19,200 USD

         - Connection fee: 10,000 USD.

         - Development:

               - 1 senior backend developer. 50 USD/h x 120h of work = 6,000 USD

               - 1 senior frontend developer: 50 USD/h x 40h of work = 2,000 USD

               - 1 QA: 30 USD/h x 40h of work = 1,200 USD 

[Deliverable 2]

   - Description: Allow opening SEPA virtual bank accounts through our BaaS provider

   - How to measure: Contract Signed with our global BaaS. This provider is the same for SEPA bank account issuing, global Visa/Mastercard issuing, and off-ramp out of Latam. Our customers should be able to open a SEPA bank account to receive payments from Europe and hold their money in EURC. Users in Meru can hold USDC and EURC.

   - Estimated date of completion: 06/14/2024

   - Budget: 43,800 USD

         - One-time setup fee: 20,000 USD.

         - Development:

               - 1 senior backend developer. 50 USD/h x 280h of work = 14,000 USD

               - 1 senior frontend developer: 50 USD/h x 160h of work = 8,000 USD

               - 1 QA: 30 USD/h x 60h of work = 1,800 USD 

[Deliverable 3]

   - Description: Off-ramp to bank accounts outside of Latam.

   - How to measure: Customers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines can withdraw their money to local bank accounts.

   - Estimated date of completion: 06/07/2024

   - Budget: 9,720 USD

         - Development:

               - 1 senior frontend developer: 50 USD/h x 120h of work = 6,000 USD

               - 1 junior backend developer: 30 USD/h x 120h of work = 3,600 USD

               - 1 QA: 30 USD/h x 40h of work = 120 USD 

[Deliverable 4]

   - Description: Integrate global Visa/Mastercard issuing.

   - How to measure: Our global customers (distinct from Colombia, Venezuela, México, and Guatemala) should be able to request Visa/Mastercard cards, to spend their USDC/EURC balances.

   - Estimated date of completion: 07/14/2024

   - Budget: 25,800 USD

         - Development:

               - 1 senior backend developer. 50 USD/h x 280h of work = 14,000 USD

               - 1 senior frontend developer: 50 USD/h x 200h of work = 10,000 USD

               - 1 QA: 30 USD/h x 60h of work = 1,800 USD 

April 2024

- 04/15/2024 - 04/19/2024:

• Allocate the team for KYC/AML integration and BaaS integration.
• Sign the contract with our global KYC partner.
• Pay the connection fee to the KYC partner.
• Receive API documentation and Sandbox API Keys about KYC/AML implementation. 
• Kick-off the integration of KYC in Sandbox environment.
• Sign the contract with our global Baas partner.
• Pay for the initial setup fee of our global Baas partner.
• Receive API documentation and Sandbox API Keys for BaaS.
• Kick-off the integration with BaaS in Sandbox environment.

- 04/22/2024 - 04/26/2024

• Start code implementation of flows of verifications in the backend depending on the residency country of each customer.
• Start code implementation of frontend flutter flows of KYC verifications.
• Start backend code implementation of SEPA bank accounts
• Start backend code implementation for supporting EURC assets on each non-custodial wallet of each user of Meru.

- 04/29/2024 - 05/03/2024

• Continue code implementation in backend of KYC process.
• Continue code implementation in frontend of KYC process.
• Continue backend code implementation of SEPA bank accounts.
• Continue backend code implementation for supporting EURC assets in Meru.

May 2024

- 05/06/2024 - 05/10/2024

• Finish implementation in backend/frontend of KYC process.
• Start QA of the KYC/AML implementation.
• Continue backend code implementation of SEPA bank accounts.
• Start development in backend of USDC/EURC off-ramping through our BaaS in countries outside of Latam.
• Start development in frontend for USDC/EURC off-ramping.

- 05/13/2024 - 05/17/2024

• Finish QA reviews about KYC.
• Certification of implementation in backend and frontend with partner KYC IT team.
• Receive approval from the partner KYC IT Team.
• Receive production API Keys for KYC/AML.
• Go live with KYC/AML process with the new global partner.
• Continue backend code implementation of SEPA bank accounts.
• Continue backend code implementation for supporting EURC in our backend ecosystem.
• Continue development in backend and frontend related to USDC/EURC off-ramping.
• Start frontend flutter code implementation for opening a SEPA bank account from the mobile app.
• Start frontend flutter implementation to handle multi-language (Spanish, Portuguese and English)

- 05/20/2024 - 05/24/2024

• Continue SEPA bank accounts backend code implementation.
• Finish backend code implementation for supporting EURC in our backend ecosystem.
• Continue frontend flutter code implementation for opening a SEPA bank account from the mobile app.
• Start frontend flutter code implementation to view details of a SEPA bank account.
• Start frontend flutter code implementation to display and operate multiple currencies in Meru app (USDC/ERUC)
• Continue implementation in frontend to handle multi-language.
• Finish frontend and backend development of USDC/EURC off-ramping.
• Start QA of USDC/EURC off-ramping.

- 05/27/2024 - 05/31/2024

• Finish SEPA bank accounts backend code implementation.
• Finish frontend flutter code implementation for opening a SEPA bank account from our mobile app.
• Finish frontend flutter code implementation to view details of a SEPA bank account.
• Continue frontend flutter code implementation to display and operate multiple currencies in our app (USDC/ERUC)
• Start QA for SEPA bank accounts in Sandbox Mode.
• Finish implementation in frontend to handle multi-language.
• Finish QA of USDC/EURC off-ramping

June 2024

- 06/03/2024 - 06/07/2024

• Finish frontend flutter code implementation to display and operate multiple currencies in our app (USDC/ERUC)
• Obtain certification from Baas IT Team to go to production with USDC/EURC off-ramping.
• Obtain production API Keys for USDC/EURC off-ramping.
• Launch in production USDC/EURC off-ramping for India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines.
• Continue QA for SEPA bank accounts in Sandbox Mode.
• Start Visa/Mastercard cards global issuing in backend in Sandbox Mode.

- 06/10/2024 - 06/14/2024

• Finish QA for SEPA bank accounts.
• Obtain certification from the BaaS IT Team to go to production with SEPA bank accounts.
• Receive production API Keys for SEPA bank accounts.
• Launch SEPA bank accounts in Meru.
• Continue development of Visa/Mastercard cards global issuing in backend.
• Start the development of the process of requesting the Visa/Mastercard virtual/physical cards in the frontend.

- 06/17/2024 - 06/21/2024

• Continue development of Visa/Mastercard cards global issuing in backend.
• Continue development of the process of requesting the Visa/Mastercard virtual/physical cards in the frontend.
• Start development of viewing the card details and transactions in frontend.
• Start development of retrieving the card's transactions in frontend.

- 06/24/2024 - 06/28/2024

• Continue development of Visa/Mastercard cards global issuing in backend.
• Finish development of viewing the card details and transactions in frontend.
• Finish development of retrieving the card's transactions in frontend.

July 2024

- 07/03/2024 - 07/07/2024

• Finish frontend development related to global Visa/Mastercards cards issuing.
• Finish backend development related to global Visa/Mastercards cards issuing.
• Start QA of global Visa/Mastercards cards issuing in Sandbox mode.

-07/10/2024 - 07/14/2024

• Finish QA of Visa/Mastercard issuing
• Obtain certification from BaaS IT Team to go to production with Visa/Mastercard global issuing.
• Obtain production API Keys from our BaaS partner.
• Moving to production global Visa/Mastercard issuing.
• Launch a new version of Meru in Google Play Store and App Store.

Carlos Neira

CEO

Born in Colombia, with more than 30 years of experience in the tech field. Worked at companies such as IBM and Intel. Fintech Entrepreneur in Colombia with a successful company (Cajero.co) that offers mobile POS to SMBs.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlos-neira-a1a44548/

Discord: @neiracg

https://twitter.com/ajerazo

Amilcar Erazo

CTO

Born in Venezuela, with more than 10 years developing software. Worked as Senior Software Engineer in companies like NuBank and RappiPay.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amilcar-jose-erazo-perdomo-721a1a65/

https://github.com/ajoseerazo
Discord: @kirckz

Yoser Rodriguez

COO

Born in Venezuela, Industrial Engineer. Founded a remittances company (Remepagos) that operated for over two years, sending remittances from Colombia to Venezuela. Crypto Trader

https://co.linkedin.com/in/yoser-rodriguez-740521178

Discord: @yoser9479

We launched in August 2022. Since that, we have more than 50k registered users. Our MAU is around 4k. In total, we have transacted +10.5MM USD and more than 215k transactions. We had more than 400k in revenue last year. We have more than 2k reviews in Google Play Store with almost 50k downloads

Our user base is widely spread across Latam, but given that Moneygram gives us global coverage we believe that by translating our application to English and making it available to other geographies we can have a footprint beyond Latam and serving users that have this same problem because receiving payments from international companies, customers and freelancer platforms is a global problem.

You can find more about us in 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/getmeru

Instagram: https://instagram.com/meru.app

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/dgAdX37rHN

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/88967421/

Android App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.getmeru.app

iOS App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/meru-cuenta-en-usd/id1636697895