Bringing Together Social Responsibility and a Sustainable Business Model

In a world of PayPal, Stripe, AmazonPay, and a plethora of options do we still need new payment solutions? Well, we do.

With conversations around climate change and the impending environmental disasters surfacing in the past few years, consumers have become more conscious about their consumption habits. The recent IPCC report on climate change says that every fraction of carbon emission-controlled can reduce the overall damage to our planet. In this context, we now have people going out of their way to find sustainable, environment-friendly alternatives for their needs. Brands too have pledged to reduce their footprint on the environment and head toward sustainability.

While this is true for almost all industries, the financial sector remains oblivious to shifting consumer patterns. Present-day payment solutions are a great example of that. There are hundreds of solutions making it easier for people to send and receive payments from across the globe. But their reliance on Visa and Mastercard networks and other intermediaries creates a problem.

The reliance on intermediaries for transactions creates unnecessary layers and calls for an additional man and machine power. In addition, there are commissions users must pay to process their transactions. This makes the present-day payment solutions unsustainable not just for the environment but also for the consumers’ pockets.

Retreeb: More Than Just a Sustainable Alternative

The reasons mentioned above clearly show the need for a new payment system; one that aligns with the changing consumer patterns while still making payments convenient for users. This is exactly what Retreeb aims to achieve.

Retreeb is a sustainable alternative to present-day payment solutions but it is also much more than that. Combining a robust technical infrastructure with a sound economic model, it aims to create transparency in a particularly opaque sector. Retreeb’s infrastructure decentralizes payments and eliminates the need for intermediaries thus cutting down on man-machine energy, and commissions. The best part is that Retreeb also incorporates CSR (corporate social responsibility) at the heart of its business model by donating 33% of the collected transaction fees as cashback. We’ve seen payment solutions like Apple Pay and others grant cashback to users. But this cashback often comes at the expense of users by enticing them to make more transactions on the network, contributing to excess energy consumption.

Retreeb, on the other hand, proposes a cashback for the good, where the platform donates one-third of the transaction fees merchants pay to social causes. So, instead of getting cashbacks, users have the ability to choose social causes where they want to donate the allocated funds. And just like typical cashback programs, this benefit comes at zero cost to users.

Tokenizing Transactions on the DAGchain

To achieve its goal and to secure payments made on the network, Retreeb tokenizes all transactions. It does so using stablecoins and a fork of Fantom’s Lachesis DAG (directed acyclic graph) chain. This technology can fully secure transactions using cryptographic processes without the need for miners. Validations are made directly from user terminals and the governance is centralized, offering more scalability and security when compared to traditional blockchains.

The centralized governance on a distributed system allows Retreeb to regain control of the transaction to apply its business model. For every transaction made on-chain, Retreeb charges a fee of 0.9 to 1.5% which is much less compared to traditional payment systems. A third of the collected transaction fees are donated to social causes without any additional donations needed from the users.

Double Asset Power

The Retreeb network is powered by two tokens that are responsible for processing payments and governing the network.

First of these is (s)Treeb — the multi-local stablecoin that enables transaction tokenization and enabled consumers to process their payments. The retailers who receive the payments can stack the token for 72 hours before it is burnt and the corresponding fiat bank balance is sent to them.

The second token (u)Treeb is the utility and governance token for the Retreeb community.  Its main purpose concerns governance for the selection of CSR projects that need funding. It uses a proof-of-stake mechanism for the selection of validators who participate in the governance.

Future of Payments?

A payments architecture that rivals the rest and a business model that redistributes value effectively… this is probably the ultimate combination that the new-age consumer would love. If this sustainable business model works the magic it is intended for, we could very well be looking at the future of payments in the form of Retreeb.

Picture of mohamed Hassan on pixabay