Climate and environmental issues are only increasing in severity, with temperatures rising and natural disasters occurring in one place after another. Rather than turn a blind eye towards these conditions, the population has become more conscious of their consumption habits, pushing towards finding more sustainable ways to meet their needs. Likewise, brands have also committed to reducing their footprint.
While most businesses have taken a more sustainable stand, the payment industry has fallen behind. As many new actors and payment methods have joined the race, their mindset has been set on making a profit without a sense of social, environmental or economic responsibility.
This mindset has since been evident through the high cost of these services for users. The asymmetry between the impact and corporate social responsibility has only continued to grow until the world was introduced to the concept of blockchain technology. With blockchain, the potential to gain access to an added level of transparency exists, resulting in fewer risks when used correctly.
In addition to unmatched transparency in transactions, improved end-user experience, better process efficiency and faster transaction speeds in business operations become additional by-products of its decentralized nature.
The question then becomes, “isn’t it time to take advantage of this technology to change the rules of the game and make finance more ethical and responsible?”
It is this gap with traditional finance that Retreeb fills as a sustainable alternative.
In reference to the current market, a member from their team shares, “at the heart of economic exchanges, payment is the key to making blockchain mainstream and building the path to a new sustainable finance.”
Beyond the trusted middlemen
Where finance was once a particularly opaque sector, Retreeb is giving its customers the ability to take back control over financial transactions. Their model based on corporate and social responsibility, combined with blockchain-powered financial architecture, provides a disintermediated payment method free of the interbank commissions common today.
Therefore, merchants can now expect a much smaller fee of 0.9% to 1.5% compared to the 2.5%-5% common by centralized market players like Visa or Paypal today.
This is possible thanks to the Fantom Opera technology and the blockchain infrastructure on which Retreeb builds its offer — an infrastructure that provides fast transactions, low costs and many opportunities for evolution.
Although reduced, the platform continues to pledge one-third of their fees (33%) towards social projects that users vote on, something the platform refers to as solidarity cashback.
In practice, Retreeb uses a “bi-foundational model,” including tokenization of transactions and SEPA bank transfers. Tokenization is made possible through a form of Fanthom’s “Lachesis DAG” on the Lachesis Protocol. The second pillar in the foundational model looks to the SEPA bank transfer, which aims to circulate fiat financial flows, which in turn, help the platform regain control over the transaction to apply its business model.
Retreeb also leverages a two-asset system, which includes (S)TREEB (Retreeb’s Stablecoin) and (U)TREEB (Retreeb’s Utility Token).
Together the use of these decentralized technologies helps to develop a business model based on ethics and sustainability rather than profitability alone.
Paving the way to ethical finance
Since the company’s inception, they have successfully built an international team, complete with passionate experts from a diverse number of fields. After raising $2.2 million, Retreeb launched their token in partnership with Spookyswap, ranking in the top 9 projects worldwide. They have since grown a community of over 28,000 followers on Twitter and 16,000 on Telegram.
The team assures that there are more updates to come. Their CEO announced “the imminent launch” of their staking program during the Fantom Developer Conference.
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