If you missed the webinar with Glint's Founder, Jason Cozens, we’ve summarised some vital information about Glint in a Q&A session with the team.
Glint: No, many of our customers have realised that it is not the price of gold that fluctuates, rather the value or perceived value of fiat currencies is fluctuating up and down, and generally declining. Consequently, as the confidence and strength of the dollar fluctuates, so does the price of gold in these fiat currencies, which is generally increasing.
Therefore, I believe that the majority of our customers are aware that they live in a world where prices are denominated in USD, GBP or other currencies, and that the value of their gold may fluctuate as confidence in fiat currencies fluctuates, but that gold always maintains its value over time. I do not recall receiving any complaints about this.
For example, recently, people have stated that gold has not performed particularly well this year. That was due to the fact that they were viewing it in USD. In the past year, gold was up between 10% and 13%, depending on the month, compared to USD, GBP, EUR and JPY. Nonetheless, there was a flight to safety as a result of the stock market crash, the cryptocurrency crash, and the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Where were they going? They converted to gold and USD.
In USD terms, it may appear that gold has not gone up much. Until recently, the Fed has begun to shift their views such that they will no longer be so bullish on interest rate hikes. They must combat the recession. Consequently, they are relaxing their quantitative tightening and their interest rate increases. Moreover, gold prices have risen in USD as well.
Glint: Yes, as an electronic money institution, we are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. It is crucial to understand that we do not have a credit card, but rather a debit card. It indicates that you can only spend the funds in your account. If there is no money in the account, it cannot be used. In terms of protection surrounding transactions, the liability for a transaction actually lies with the merchant, not with the issuer. Therefore, if a merchant deducts funds from a card without authorisation, they are responsible, and a chargeback will occur.
Glint: Gold is sold instantly when a user runs their card through the machine. The Glint platform receives a request that arrives via MasterCard. We have developed our own technology and are one of the few Fintech companies to have built our own platform, as there were no commercially available alternatives.
When you swipe the card, MasterCard processes the signal. This enters the Glint system. The Glint system receives a constant stream of market prices to determine the spot price of gold in that millisecond. Then, we sell just enough gold to cover the cost of the transaction. Now we either sell it to a concurrent buyer, who may be willing to purchase it at the same time we sell it to them, or we sell it back. To our liquidity provider with whom our systems are constantly connected, the proceeds from the sale of this objective are then sent back to the merchant via MasterCard.
The time between the user's authorisation and the sale of the gold is 200 milliseconds.
Glint: No, we do not charge anything when you complete a transaction; it is free. If you see the MasterCard logo, you can use your Glint card. We were not required to onboard individual merchants.
In terms of fees, we charge 0.5% to purchase gold. E.g., if you wish to sell it for GBP, we charge 0.5%. If you use your card to make the transaction, you are selling your gold. But everything is occurring in real time. We do not charge any fees.
Glint: Currently, I would refer to our product as a product for the back of the wallet. It is primarily for saving and is occasionally used for expenditures. When users save money, they are eventually going to have to spend it, and they're doing just that. It may be spent once or twice per month, if at all.
However, the majority of our customers do so, because it cannot be used as a banking alternative. However, we have a plan to move Glint from the back of the wallet account to the front of the wallet account over the next two years. This means you'll be able to make bank payments to third parties, allowing users to make bank payments out. It means users can set up direct debits or automatic payments for utility bills. It means that in the UK and Europe, each wallet will be associated with an I ban number or account number.
We've completed all the laborious tasks. We've constructed this platform. We've developed a back-end system that is gradually becoming a platform. We are constructing a global financial services ecosystem based on gold.
Glint: We are developing a newer version of the application, and the branding is changing, with a focus on improving design. The objective is to increase the ratio of registered to active customers. One of the first ways in which we will accomplish this is to introduce the option to purchase gold during the onboarding process.
As soon as a user is about to be onboarded, users will be encouraged to purchase gold immediately. Our research and the lessons learned from the V2 app, which is currently live, indicate that this will significantly increase conversions. It is not the only factor that will contribute to our growth. We're also going to build more trust in the product by highlighting where the gold is stored, providing accessibility features, ensuring that we're using the most recent native designs for iOS and Android, and enhancing the KYC and onboarding process.
We're also going to build more trust in the product by highlighting where the gold is stored, providing accessibility features, ensuring that we're using the most recent native designs for iOS and Android, and enhancing the KYC and onboarding process.
Currently, approximately 30% of people who navigate the product are redirected to an email-driven onboarding process, which is not optimal. Thus, 60 to 70 percent of people do not need to do that; they can proceed directly. But 20 to 30% do. Obviously, this will be incorporated into the new APP in the 3rd quarter. Consequently, similar factors will undoubtedly improve Conversion rates.
Apple Pay and Google Play are currently available in the United States, but not in the United Kingdom. Google and android pay just went live a few weeks ago, but Apple Pay and Samsung Pay will soon be available in the UK.
People will be able to say, "I want to be able to buy gold at a certain point or price, or sell my gold at a certain price," via push notifications on the Product and limit orders. All of these factors will enhance engagement and increase sales.
In addition, we have new revenue streams that I will use to attract new, more active clients. Consequently, the tiered-based subscriptions include pension wrappers in the product.
And then, having the ability to give gold, people send gold to other individuals. Someone is not even a Glint client that will inherently make the Product viral. This is the entire process of moving it from the Backup wallet to the primary wallet. Therefore, we are fairly confident that we will be able to accomplish this within the next couple of years and will be a legitimate banking alternative.
Glint: We are already exceeding our projections. As previously stated, our cost of acquisition has dropped to a low $7. The global economy is raging with inflation, and people want this solution. Moreover, this occurrence is uncommon in the gold industry. Consequently, through improved design, marketing, and targeting, we can attempt to reduce the cost of acquisition.
Glint: Yes, I did mention that we will be constructing a business portal. We are currently testing a few businesses in what we refer to as Alpha mode.
Thus, approximately six businesses utilise Glint. They are actually paying a portion of their employees' salaries in gold or in gold peer to peer. Moreover, they are making payments to one another. Therefore, it is still very early, and it depends on how much money we can raise next year. We intend to raise funds at a significantly higher valuation.
However, a portion of this sum will be utilised as proceeds. Won't just be for marketing. They will also be used to expand our Engineering team and product team, which currently consists of only 12 engineers. Consider what we could accomplish with 24 or 300 engineers. Therefore, we intend to launch these products, such as the business portal, as quickly as possible.
Glint: We are in the early adoption phase of the innovative market adoption curve phase. I believe we can reach 9 million people (worth billions in USD) as we can approach the "Early Majority" stage.
Consequently, working with wealth managers will enable us to acquire new clients, and one of our priorities for the coming year is to expand our collaboration with affiliates. Therefore, developing affiliate relationships in order to effectively stand on the shoulders of giants and work with them to acquire their clients for our customer base.
Additionally, we are planning on campaigns to make Glint viral by permitting users to send gold to new users. Our road map has additional concepts like collections. e.g., a user wishes to collect some gold for the wedding of a friend. They will send out invitations to 20 individuals, who will all send in funds. Now, 20 additional individuals discover Glint. In turn, someone in that group of 20 will likely do the same thing, which propagates Glint exponentially.
That's an extremely exciting market. We’ve had discussions with banks and large conglomerates in India, Saudi Arabia and Dubai, who believe it would be a great idea for us to launch this product there. In the Middle East and Southeast Asia out of Singapore, our system is already technically integrated with MasterCard.
We need only the funds to become operational in those countries and to launch their marketing campaigns. Therefore, I believe that we are currently just raising this round of funding. We are content to continue focusing on the US and UK and relaunch in Europe. A portion of the proceeds will be used to begin planning our launch in these other regions, which is why we expect to be able to raise a much larger sum of money the following year and then begin expanding into new regions.
