Root the eBank.

The specific issue we are addressing is the low utilization rate of minorities, economically vulnerable in particular,  in online banking, which can lead to financial exclusion and limited access to financial services further amplify the gap between the rich and the poor in society. 

Tracing back the origin of the issue, it is to our astonishment that it could not be attributed to a single factor. Rather, it is a result of a considerable mutual impact of their incapability to access the services and their reluctance to accept the service.  

This problem is prevalent for the minority groups, especially among groups of color, who have historically faced discrimination and systemic barriers to accessing financial resources. In the US, for example, a study by the FDIC found that nearly 17% of households are unbanked or underbanked, with higher rates among Black and Hispanic households. This limits their ability to save, invest, and build wealth. Globally, the problem is even more acute, with an estimated 1.7 billion people without access to basic financial services.

On the other hand, the minority group does not hold a positive attitude toward online banking system either. As they might consider it irrelevant, useless when they struggle to make a living in society, they could barely enjoy the benefit of online banking, not to mention doing their personal asset management. Without asset management, they could hardly accumulate their asset and fortune through more effective methods to break their economic dilemma. In other words, their reluctant attitude is crashing their opportunity to escape the malicious cycle and continually suffering. Their unwillingness to accept online banking might result from inappropriate financial education and resources, inadequate security measures, language barriers, and user-unfriendly interfaces. 

To put both perspectives together, the minority would have a lower possibility to adopt online banking service not only because they do not have the access to it but also because they do not have sufficient knowledge to understand how it works. According to a report by McKinsey & Company, "Building a forward-looking asset-management system can reduce annual capital expenditures by 20 to 30 percent, extend asset life by up to 20 percent, and cut maintenance costs by 5 to 10 percent." According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the minority group accounts for 40.7% of the entire population, including individuals who identified as Hispanic or Latino, Black or African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, or two or more races. As there is 333 million population in the U.S, there are 135 million of minority population in total. If they could have acquired the adequate knowledge and resources to asset management, they would have greatly elevated their economic status.

Our organization, eBankit, aims to address the low utilization rate of minority groups in online banking in the U.S. As lack of accessing resources and the unwilling attitude are considered the primary reasons of this issue, eBankit decided to provide both physical and virtual services at first to handle minority’s incapability to access resources. In the long run, we would take further initiatives including proper financial education for the minority to root out this issue.

eBankit takes an innovative approach to serve minority groups with a platform, which adopts both AI and Internet of Things(Iot) technology to connect reality and the online world, to build up convenient and secure access for the minority. Aside from that, we would set up physical stores at the hive area of minority communities to assist their use. We adopt IoT to provide personal financial advice in the physical world, including informing them how to access the nearby financial services. Meanwhile, the IoT technology could also assist the use of online banking systems. On the other hand, our AI system could keep track of user experience so as to analyze their data to provide customized financial advice, one of the main strengths of our platform. AI algorithms would take over the data collected from the IoT system to analyze a range of data points, inclusive of income, consuming habits, user experience in the platform, even the personal information the user had entered into the APP to provide more tailored advice which takes into account users’ unique circumstances and needs. Furthermore, AI systems would be applied to ensure the user’s privacy in the platform, which we take very seriously. Many minorities have expressed their concerns about data leaking. eBankit develops a series of strong security measures in the platform such as multi-factor authentication, encryption, and fraud detection algorithms, which can help build trust and confidence among our users while maintaining user-friendly interfaces. 

Overall, our online banking platform is designed to provide a comprehensive solution for minorities who face unique challenges when it comes to online banking. By providing personalized financial advice, education on financial literacy, and strong security measures, we aim to improve the credibility and access to financial services for minorities, and ultimately promote greater financial inclusion. We are affirmative that our solution has the potential to make a significant impact in addressing the challenges faced by minority communities when it comes to online banking. By improving their access to financial services and increasing their financial literacy, we hope to promote greater financial inclusion and ultimately contribute to a more equitable and just society.

Our solution provides access and financial education to minorities who are currently underserved and face barriers in the U.S to get access to traditional financial services. This includes people of color, immigrants, low-income individuals, and those with limited English proficiency.

These populations often face challenges in accessing financial education and resources, navigating complex financial systems, and experiencing bias and discrimination in financial decision-making. This can lead to a lack of trust in financial institutions, limited financial opportunities, and a malicious cycle of poverty.

Our solution will directly impact their lives by increasing their financial literacy and confidence, providing them with equal opportunities in essence to access financial services, and greatly reducing bias and discrimination in financial decision-making through the insertion of AI technology. By offering user-friendly interfaces, personalized financial advice, even multilingual options, we aim to make online banking more accessible and inclusive for the minorities. Additionally, by implementing strong security measures and AI-powered fraud detection, we can provide assurance and protection for their personal information and financial transactions. 

Through these efforts, we aim to empower minorities to make informed financial decisions, build up financial literacy and break the cycle of poverty. Ultimately, we are convinced that our solution will help create a more equitable and inclusive financial system that serves all individuals, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status.

eBankit is well-positioned not only because we are aware of the importance of inclusion but also we have first-hand experiences and strategic thinking to help solve this issue. 

As the teams come from diverse cultural backgrounds, we have strived to provide an inclusive surroundings for both our members and our customers. Aside from the diverse members, most of our team members have enormous first-hand experiences on international collaborations, with minorities in particular. With these experiences, we have come to realize the inclusion in all aspects in society should be nonnegligent. It has become the organization’s priority to create an inclusive surrounding for all people, especially minorities. In addition, this abundant international collaboration has granted eBankit the leading advantage to the front line information and the minority’s needs. 

With the access, eBankit also contains experts in a variety of domains to form reliable strategies. We have arranged  a series of plans to root out the low utilization rate of online banking among minorities. We have marketing experts to analyze and adjust the product launching that we would launch the platform with massive exposure and collaborations with local stores to provide incentives for users. While at the same time, our experts in financial domains would keep track of our expenses to ensure the efficiency and quality of our marketing strategies. In the middle stage, we have experts in the UX/UI to further revise the application page in accordance with analysis on our user journey provided by our engineering experts. In the long run, we would like to concentrate on financial education, and most eBankit members used to have resistance while transfering to online banking, making them qualified to capture the key pain points that resonate with the minority. 

Overall speaking, eBankit has the proximity to the communities we are serving, coupled with our experience and expertise in banking and technology, make us well-positioned to design and deliver a platform that addresses the unique needs of low-income households in the New York State area. We are committed to ensuring that our platform is accessible, user-friendly, and educational, and we will continue to work closely with our target population to ensure that their input and ideas are meaningfully incorporated into our solution.

While the current platform prototype is still being designed and tested, eBankit has made quite a progress by not only conceptualizing the key issue with precise market research but also coming up with a series of concrete strategies to meet different goals. Aside from the concrete strategies, eBankit has engaged with a wide variety of stakeholders, the minorities in particular, clarifying their pain points to make the platform design more closer to meet their needs. The modification of the prototype has been going back and forth intensively. 

The key of this phase focuses on getting attention from the target audience, which is the low-income households in The Bronx in New York City. . Hence, the mass exposure to their common channels is essential and crucial.Aside from that, the app should form collaborations with different shops to have coupons or discounts to attract the target audience.

Through intensive collaborations with the local shops and public sectors, the platform is estimated to get massive exposure. Once the application platform has gained exposure and attracted a large number of low-income households in New York State, eBankit will focus on cultivating their loyalty to the platform. This will be achieved by emphasizing the different functions that eBankit has designed and provided for the users. Additionally, eBankit will gather feedback from the users to improve the platform and provide better services to them. The aim is to create a user-friendly, reliable, and efficient platform that will become the go-to choice for low-income households in the state.

After cultivating a great number of loyal customers, eBankit will keep pushing forward to the ultimate stage of the project, financial education. The reason why low-income households in New York City have a hard time using the online banking system is because they have no compulsory reasons to use it. eBankit will provide financial educational instructions and suggestions to its target audience by introducing a personalized AI assistant in the system. This assistant will coach those low-income users with financial knowledge to give suggestions on their financial asset management. By providing this service, eBankit aims to empower its users and help them take control of their financial future through a series of concrete implementing strategies.

We have the prototype of our platform, however, it is not yet serving anyone. 

It is estimated that our platform would serve 1/10 of the minority population in The Bronx, the dominant residency of the minorities in New York City, which stands for approximately 100,000 people. This number is expected to grow in the future.  

Financial inclusion is a tremendous vital issue around the globe, and yet many parts of the world fail to reach it. Even within a nation, the gap between the rich and the poor could be gigantic. Technology advancement has long been considered to be a privilege of the wealthy, and the economic-weak groups have no choice but to suffer in the dilemma of attempting to catch up with the rapid development while at the same time making a living.

eBankit enlightens the possibility to ease the gap, and we are convinced to make a difference by helping the minorities adapt the online banking system as well as improve their economic status. However, eBankit would like to get assistance from Solve to deal with market barriers due to the fact that the minorities might be reluctant to accept the service while they really are in need. eBankit has developed strategies for different stages, and we would not be able to implement them unless the market barrier is broken. With the support of Solve’s strong local network, eBankit would have formed collaborations with the local shops where the minorities often visit to provide incentives to take part in the service. Moreover, as the financial service, especially the personalized financial advisor, would require access to the minorities’ user data, it would be appreciated if Solve could assist us to inspect whether there are regulatory issues eBankit has violated the local enforcement. 

eBankit's solution to address financial inclusion is innovative in several ways.

Firstly, eBankit is tackling the issue of financial inclusion by designing a platform that is tailored to the specific needs of low-income households, particularly minorities in The Bronx, New York City. While there are existing online banking platforms, they often cater to a more affluent audience and may not provide the necessary features and support for those who face financial barriers. By focusing on the unique pain points and needs of this population, eBankit's platform is poised to address the specific financial needs of low-income households in a way that other platforms have not.

Secondly, eBankit's approach includes a personalized AI assistant that provides financial education and guidance to users. This feature is unique in the online banking space and has the potential to significantly improve financial literacy and asset management skills among low-income households. By empowering users with the knowledge and skills to manage their finances effectively, eBankit's platform has the potential to catalyze broader positive impacts in financial inclusion, such as increased savings, reduced debt, and improved credit scores.

Lastly, eBankit's platform has the potential to change the market structure. As the platform gains traction and proves successful in serving low-income households, other banks and financial institutions may take note and begin to design similar solutions. In this way, eBankit's approach has the potential to catalyze broader positive impacts by encouraging other actors in the financial industry to prioritize financial inclusion and design products and services that meet the needs of underserved populations.

Overall, eBankit's solution to financial inclusion is innovative in its focus on the unique needs of low-income households, its inclusive design process, its personalized financial education, and its potential to catalyze broader positive impacts and change the market.

Our impact goals for the next year are to launch and test our platform with a pilot group of low-income households in The Bronx, New York City. We aim to onboard at least 1,000 users and achieve a user satisfaction rate of over 80%. We will measure our success by tracking user engagement, user feedback, and the number of transactions completed on the platform.

Over the next five years, our impact goals are to reach at least 100,000 low-income households in New York State, providing them with access to financial services that they may not have had otherwise. We aim to achieve this through partnerships with local businesses, community organizations, and government agencies, as well as targeted marketing campaigns that focus on reaching our target audience where they are most likely to be found. Our goal is to have eBankit recognized as a go-to financial service provider for low-income households in the state.

To achieve these impact goals, we plan to take a three-pronged approach:

Develop and refine our platform: Our platform will undergo extensive user testing and feedback gathering during the pilot phase to ensure that it is user-friendly, reliable, and efficient. We will continue to gather feedback from users throughout the five-year period to make improvements and additions to the platform as necessary.

Build partnerships with local businesses and organizations: To reach our target audience effectively, we plan to partner with local businesses and organizations that serve low-income households. These partnerships will allow us to offer targeted marketing campaigns and financial incentives to encourage people to sign up for our platform. We will also work with these partners to provide financial education workshops and other resources to our users.

Empower our users with financial education: Providing access to financial services is only part of the solution to the financial inclusion problem. To truly empower our users and help them take control of their financial future, we plan to provide financial education resources through our platform. We will offer personalized AI assistants to coach our users with financial knowledge and asset management suggestions. Additionally, we will partner with community organizations and government agencies to provide in-person workshops and other educational resources.

In summary, our impact goals for the next year and the next five years are to launch and scale our platform, reach as many low-income households as possible, and empower our users with financial education. We believe that by achieving these goals, we can have a transformational impact on the lives of low-income households in New York State, and potentially serve as a model for other communities and organizations seeking to increase financial inclusion.

We understand that measuring progress toward impact goals is crucial to ensure that our solution is making a meaningful difference in the world. We cut in from the perspective of ESG with a combination of qualitative and quantitative indicators to track our progress, which includes:

The number of people reached: We measure the number of people who have been reached by our solution, whether through our platform, workshops, or other outreach efforts. This helps us understand the scope of our impact and whether we are reaching our target audience.

Behavior change: We monitor behavior change among our target population, which is a critical indicator of our solution's effectiveness. For example, if our solution aims to reduce plastic waste, we would measure whether people are using reusable bags and bottles instead of single-use ones.

User feedback: We collect feedback from users to understand how our solution is perceived and how it can be improved. This helps us iterate and improve our solution to better meet the needs of our target audience.

Environmental impact: We measure the environmental impact of our solution, such as the amount of waste reduced or emissions avoided. This helps us understand the broader impact of our solution on the planet.

Partnerships and collaborations: We track our partnerships and collaborations with other organizations and stakeholders, which can help us amplify our impact and reach a wider audience.

Financial sustainability: We measure our financial sustainability by tracking our revenue streams and expenses, ensuring that our revenue covers our expected expenses and allows us to continue delivering impact over the long term.

Overall, we believe that a comprehensive approach to measuring progress toward impact goals is critical to ensuring that our solution is making a meaningful difference in the world. We are committed to ongoing evaluation and improvement to maximize our impact and drive positive change for our target audience and the planet.

The theory of change behind eBankit is that by providing financial services tailored to the needs of low-income and minority populations, we can increase financial inclusion, improve financial literacy, and ultimately, improve their overall economic status.

Our theory of change is based on several key assumptions:

• Lack of access to financial services is a major barrier to financial inclusion and economic advancement for low-income and minority populations.

• The low-income and minority population lack trust in the traditional financial institutions due to their incapability to address their specific needs. 

• Through effective and proper financial education, the low-income and the minority population would have the knowledge and capability to manage their assets structurally. 

• Improved financial literacy and access to financial services will bring in financial knowledge and improve the low-income and the minority populations’ negative attitude toward online banking. 

To achieve our theory of change, we have developed a set of activities that will lead to specific outputs and outcomes. These include:

Activities:

• Developing and launching a user-friendly online banking platform with personalized financial services tailored to the needs of low-income and minority populations.

• Collaborating with local shops and community organizations to build trust and increase uptake of our services.

• Providing financial education resources to help users build financial literacy and make informed financial decisions.

• Offering personalized financial advice to help users establish  their financial goals and suggestions on how to achieve them.

Outputs:

• Increased the low-income and minority population’s awareness and uptake of eBankit services among low-income and minority populations. 

• Increased  the low-income and minority population’s use of financial education resources as well as personalized financial advising.

• Improved eBankit users’ financial literacy.

Outcomes:

• Societal level: Increased financial inclusion for low-income and minority populations.

• Individual level: Improved economic status for eBankit users.

To support our theory of change, we plan to collect data on user behavior and outcomes through surveys, user feedback, and usage analytics. This data will be used to continuously improve our platform and services, as well as to measure progress toward our impact goals.

We also plan to work with third-party evaluators to conduct rigorous evaluations of our impact, including randomized control trials and quasi-experimental designs. By using these evaluation methods, we can establish a causal link between our activities and outcomes, providing further evidence to support our theory of change.

In summary, our theory of change is that by providing personalized financial services tailored to the unique needs of low-income and minority populations, we can improve financial inclusion, financial literacy, and ultimately, economic status. Through a combination of user feedback, data analytics, and third-party evaluations, we plan to continuously improve our platform and services to achieve these impact goals.

Our solution, eBankit, leverages modern technologies to provide financial service through a fintech platform, specifically for underserved communities. The core technology of eBankit is a server to connect the database which our IoT system collected from the big data and the AI we developed to provide financial advice. The server builds a solid cloud-based infrastructure that accounts for high scalability, reliability, and security.

The server utilizes various technologies such as data analytics, machine learning to expand the data resource and advance the analysis for personalized financial advice to users. Throughout the analysis, a wider variety of factors could be taken into account such as daily consuming behaviors, financial routines, income, etc. The more information the user provides, the more precise advice AI could offer to meet their personal needs. 

In addition, eBankit develops its own app, enabling the users to access and conduct financial activities on their mobile devices. Furthermore, the app forms links with the frequently visited shops to provide coupons, making the financial transactions more simple and convenient. 

Overall, eBankit's core technology is a combination of various modern technologies that work together to provide a secure, reliable, and accessible financial platform to underserved communities.

Our team is quite diverse in a way that it consists of people situated in different countries and experts in different domains. The team members all have abundant international collaborations to align with one of the core values of eBankit, the importance of cultural inclusion. 

Moreover, eBankit has made it into the code of conduct that equal opportunities should be provided to all team members and recruiters, and the periodical job evaluation would take a performance-based approach to assure that no personal factors such as wages and races would interfere with the evaluation. 

Aside from the regulations within the organization, eBankit would provide leaders with some training programs to strengthen their competence in communication. For instance, the choice between instant and delayed communication could make a huge difference on the employees. For certain important decision-making, the leaders have better express themselves through instant communication like a phone call or other social media platforms to demonstrate their decency and their emphasis on the quality of this conversation. 

eBankit is firmly convinced of the value of financial inclusion, especially for the minority group with the aim of increasing financial literacy and accessibility. eBankit developed the platform using its core technology, with the goal of improving/increasing 20% participation among underprivileged housewives in The Bronx, New York City, through deployment.

eBankit's primary operations include platform development and maintenance. Aside from platform operations, eBankit should develop an effective online marketing strategy to reach its target audience. To execute the operation well, eBankit should form good relationships with key partners, including local public sectors, local business partners and hardware suppliers. Local governments would assist eBankit in addressing regulatory difficulties. Local business partners would have better access to the target audience, hence eBankit rewards these partners for marketing our platform services. In terms of hardware suppliers, we should build a strong connection with them because they will offer critical equipment for the platform's development. Lastly, eBankit’s key resources consist of human resources, intellectual resources, and financial resources. Lastly, eBankit’s key resources consist of human resources, intellectual resources, and financial resources. Intellectual resources, also known as intellectual properties, play a vital role in eBankit’s operation since we have applied several innovative technologies into our operation; therefore, intellectual protection such as patents, copyrights, should be protected on a solid basis. In terms of financial resources, eBankit would contribute significantly to progress.

Our key customer, as mentioned in the previous sections, would be minorities who are currently underserved and face barriers in the U.S to get access to traditional financial services. This includes people of color, immigrants, low-income individuals, and those with limited English proficiency. Currently, eBankit draws specific attention to the minorities in The Bronx, New York City. Effective channels, both physical such as local shops and online such as Google Play and App Store, would be built to ensure that our service reaches the minority population. With effective channels, eBankit assures customer relationship management via easy-access customer service.

eBankit manages the cost structure inclusive of marketing expenses, platform development and maintenance, and organizational costs. eBankit generates revenue from various methods. One dominant revenue comes from partnerships with local businesses and service providers. We offer incentives to these partners for promoting our services to their customers, which helps us to expand our customer base and generate more revenue. In addition, we offer premium services to customers who require more advanced financial services, such as wealth management and investment advisory services. Aside from partnership, a portion of our revenue derives from transaction fees. Customers are charged nominal fees for each transaction they make, such as cash withdrawals or fund transfers. We also generate revenue from interest charged on loans and savings accounts. We aim to keep our fees low and affordable for our target customers, while ensuring that our business remains sustainable. Moreover, eBankits also plans to generate revenue by selling user data to third-party financial institutions for research and marketing purposes, while ensuring that the user data is kept confidential and secure.

eBankit aims to reach financial sustainability by maintaining multiple revenue streams. In the short term, eBankit aims to negotiate with the local business partners with their exposure on the platform in exchange for their help on promoting the market. The small number of users’ transactions fee would also become a portion of the revenue.

In the middle run, eBankit attempts to make ends meet by forming more collaborations with diversified local business partners. Also, with the increasing number of users, eBankit would make profits from users’ transactions fees. As the user number keeps rising, the transaction fee would gradually dominate the entire revenue stream. 

In the long run, eBankit would make profits by the stabilized revenue model including users’ transactions fee and the marketing revenue from the local business partners. Furthermore, eBankit would diversify its service via providing the market analysis report to the market, and thus the sales would create additional revenue for the company. Aside from that, eBankit would also provide prime subscriptions to label different user groups to cultivate loyal users.  

As eBankit is still in the prototype phase, there is currently no financial information available to share. However, we can provide examples of successful financial sustainability plans from similar companies in the financial technology (fintech) industry.

One example is Chime, a mobile banking platform based in the United States. Chime provides fee-free online banking services, including checking and savings accounts, debit cards, and ATM access. Chime earns revenue primarily through transaction fees charged to merchants when customers use their debit cards for purchases. Chime also earns interest on deposits held in its accounts.

Chime has raised over $1.5 billion in funding to date, including a $750 million Series F funding round in September 2020, which valued the company at $14.5 billion. Chime has also been successful in attracting a large user base, with over 12 million accounts as of January 2021.

Another example is TransferWise, a UK-based company that provides low-cost international money transfers. TransferWise charges a small fee for each transaction, which is typically lower than the fees charged by traditional banks for international transfers. TransferWise has also expanded its services to include multi-currency accounts and debit cards.

TransferWise has raised over $1.3 billion in funding to date, including a $319 million Series E funding round in 2019, which valued the company at $3.5 billion. TransferWise has also been successful in attracting a large user base, with over 10 million customers as of January 2021.

These examples demonstrate that successful fintech companies can achieve financial sustainability through a combination of revenue-generating strategies and investment funding. By providing valuable services to their customers and attracting a large user base, these companies have been able to generate revenue while also securing significant investment funding to fuel their growth.

In the case of eBankit, we plan to achieve financial sustainability through a combination of revenue streams, including transaction fees, partnerships with local businesses, and potential government contracts. We also plan to explore investment opportunities in the future to further support our growth and development.