
FORUS – real financial inclusion is here
- December 12, 2017
- by
- Clare Petra Matthes
What’s really in a name?… Everything. Let me introduce to FORUS: FREE, OPEN, REAL TIME, UBIQUITOUS, SECURE
So, despite the launch of dozens of mobile payment platforms and e-wallets, as well as promises of new banks based on billions of rands of investment, the realisation of true financial inclusion for the poorest and most neglected communities in South Africa and beyond has not been achieved.
That is all about to change with the imminent world-wide activation of the FORUS Global Digital Exchange.
The FORUS Global Digital Exchange is a public utility blockchain and ecosystem solution that will provide a single, global, universal, trusted, user-authentication platform for both mobile and web based transactions, for the banked and the unbanked.
The FORUS platform is an ecosystem of solutions that has been developed to enable:
• the alleviation of poverty;
• the building of a generative economy;
• the creation of sustainable return for the investors;
• whilst simultaneously generating sustainable capital returns for the communities using the platform.
Benefits and functionality
FORUS will enable access to a host of financial services for millions previously excluded from the formal economy.
The payment functionality will be made available to all banks, financial institutions, merchants, application developers, and corporate enterprises, and will allow anyone to use this free payment gateway with a built-in advertising platform.
The solution is inclusive and includes:
– Free e-wallet functionality for secure, real time micro-payments anywhere, anytime
– E-commerce functionality for small businesses / hawkers / spaza shops via any device
– Pay or receive funds from anyone, anywhere, anytime for FREE
– Shares in an internationally listed company for the first 200 000 000 FORUS Foundation Members
– Access to low-interest loans, funding and financing for capital and business expenditure
– Collective / community affiliate clubs able to pool collateral for large scale funding projects
– All funds fully insured and underwritten
Global Solution
FORUS is a global solution. The FORUS team, headed by Sonny Fisher, has embarked on an international journey initiated over eight years, culminating in numerous partnerships across the world that will enable this independent and sustainable ecosystem to activate globally.
The team took the required time to design and build the platform and business model from the bottom-up, enabling a solution that not only solves existing challenges in the global payment / banking space, but also sets a new standard for the future of payment processing and financial services.
With key partnerships established and the backend blockchain technology already in place, FORUS is set for global launch in South Africa, the USA, and the Caribbean in March 2018.
FORUS will achieve ubiquity at launch and is positioned to sign up over 100 million members in quick succession through its range of key partners, leaders in the cooperative banking space as well as a host of other large member organisations in South Africa and beyond.
Some of these partners include:
– Solutions AE
– NACSA – the National Apex Co-operative of South Africa
– NACFISA – and National Association of Co-operative Financial Institutions of South Africa
– Eccentric Payment Systems
– Community Investment Base
– Laphum’ilanga Transport Services
– DGRV- German Co-operative and Raiffeisen Confederation
– IPM – Integrated People Management
The FORUS business model uses the distributed ledger technology of the FORUS Core platform, coupled with revenue generated through advertising, loyalty, and group buying discounts to develop a revenue stream for the entire ecosystem. A percentage of revenue is thus returned, in real time, to the community.
The FORUS core platform will generate revenue via permission-based advertising through Mahala Digital Media, and Mahala.TV, an innovative content management and distribution system that will leverage FORUS’s 100 million-member community as just one potential target market for AI driven content and advertising.
The MahalaTV and Mahala Digital Media platforms will utilise FORUS’s bespoke technology; the secure quick response code (SQR), that enables EVERY video, point of sale, magazine, newspaper ad, billboard, social media platform, or webpage to become a retail point of purchase. Anyone with the FORUS wallet can simply scan / photograph the code and instantly buy whatever is on offer with no transaction costs to the merchant or customer.
Based on this multi-faceted and sustainable functionality, the solution has already been embraced by a wide range of key partners across the globe.
For more information: www.forus.global