Finally, there is a P2P payments solution for … people living in countries in civil war.
Sendly, which was officially launched today by Rebtel, a VoIP provider based in Sweden (neutral country) with more than 20 million users, appears to offer the distinct value proposition of allowing for the transfer of value to some pretty gnarly nations.
Officially, Sendly can be used for the “sending of credit to a receiver’s prepaid phone,” according to the company. The company’s CEO, Andreas Bernstrom, sent us an email explaining the service this way:
We want to enable the ability for people to communicate across borders, and now millions of immigrants can credit their loved ones in their home countries. We are currently focused on solving the needs for immigrants from Africa, Asia and South America, which matches to our existing user base, but we will add more regions over time.
That sounds nice, however, 35% of the 48 nations in which the company currently operates are known to be in “armed conflict,” which means that people are dying there in violent conflicts. Those nations are:
- Afghanistan
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- China
- Colombia
- India
- Indonesia
- Kenya
- Mali
- Mexico
- Pakistan
- Philippines
- Russia
- Senegal
- Syria
- Thailand
- Uganda
- Yemen
In such nations, “sending credit to a receiver’s prepaid phone” is as much a P2P transfer of funds as when I hand you a $5 bill.
For now, Rebtel seems to be specifically avoiding operating in Western nations where anti-money laundering regulations are in place, such as the United States, the European Union, and, er, Scandinavia. We asked Sendly for an explanation, but struck out.