United Bank Of India Kyc Form Pdf: Fill & Download for Free

MLM is legal in India. MLM as Direct Selling or Network Marketing is legal. Money circulation MLM wherein there is no real product involved is illegal. You can know if it is an illegal MLM if:They charge you money to join the business. (Legal MLM businesses dont have an entry/joining fee)The product is virtual and not physical like some coins on the internet which you own but there is nothing in your hand. If the website is taken down, you lose all your so called products. Same is with educational materials or some company selling educational products.The company has an “e-wallet” where all your incentives are deposited and you have to request for a bank payment or encash by selling to someone else. (Legal MLM companies will pay your incentives/commission in your bank account after deducting TDS on the day it promised.)You don’t get a Tax Invoice with the product that you bought.It doesnt have a registered office and manufacturing unit in India.You can say that the MLM company is illegal if it has any one of the above mentioned aspect.MLM has to be legal in India because these companies are generating jobs for the jobless and give work to earn an extra income to those who earn peanuts. It will benefit millions of people in the years to come. They also help in skill development with their training programmes.MLM is so legal in India that the govt has even issued guidelines for MLM companies, some of which are:The company must be registered in India and have GST, I-T, TDS, FSSAI and other relevant licences.The company must maintain KYC of all its distributors/agents.Products must be manufactured in India.The MLM company cannot deal in cryptocurrency, insurance, online education, investment schemes etc (basically it must be a physical product which is manufactured in a plant/factory and that too must be located in India).The company cannot charge a fee from anyone who wish to join them.The company cannot pay commission or incentive to its distributor/agent unless it is due to sales of its goods/product. (Commision cannot be paid for recruiting a person).Ok there are a lot of other things so I googled it for you. Pls read this guideline PDF from Consumer Affairs Ministry, Govt of India.https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://consumeraffairs.nic.in/writereaddata/Direct%2520Selling%2520Guidelines%2520Final%2520.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjSmNeP2cndAhWMV30KHQpVD88QFjAWegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw2M5VTsUxUBez6FXGrmR8YMHere is a list of a few legal MLM companies in India:AmwayHerbalifeIMC - International Marketing Corp Pvt LtdVestige MarketingModicareAltosTupperware

You might have heard the word `Demat Account’ frequently in the past few years. If you’ve wondered what is Demat Account, let’s explain it for you.Investing in equity shares in physical form entails a lengthy procedure, lot of paperwork and risk of getting fake shares. In order to keep the entire experience easy and streamlined, a demat account is required. While trading online, demat account is used to hold shares and securities in dematerialised/electronic format. Under dematerialisation, your share certificates are converted from physical form to electronic form so as to increase their accessibility.You need a Demat Account number to settle trades electronically. Having a Demat Account allows you to buy shares and store them safely. It is similar to a bank account in which you hold deposits with the bank and the record of debit/credit balances are maintained in a bank passbook. In the same way, when you purchase or sell shares, it will be credited or debited to/from your Demat Account respectively. It can be used to hold a variety of investments like equity shares, exchange traded funds, mutual funds, bonds, and government securities.Demat Account detailsOnce your Demat Account is opened, make sure you get the following details from your DP:Demat Account number: It is known as ‘beneficiary ID’ if under CDSL. It is a mix of 16 characters.DP ID: The ID is given to the depository participant. This ID makes a part of your Demat Account number.POA number: This is part of the Power of Attorney agreement, where an investor permits the stockbroker to operate his/her account as per the given instructions.You will also receive a unique login ID and password to your Demat and Trading Accounts for online access.What are the benefits of demat account?1. Security of shares: The most important benefit of demat account is that it is safer than holding physical shares which can get lost, damaged or stolen.2. No forgery or theft Since demat account is electronic in nature, the risk of documents getting stolen, damaged or lost does not exist.3. Seamless trading and transfer Unlike transporting physical certificates, demat accounts allow transfer of shares quickly and securely. This has lowered order processing times.4. Lower cost Physical share certificates attract to paper work, stamp duty etc. which increases costs. With a demat account, all this is eradicated and you can get a demat account in no time.5. Multiple access points A demat account is operated electronically, which essentially means that users can access the account from multiple touch points – mobile, tablet, pc, laptop etc.You can open your Trading and Demat Account at 5Paisa online within 10 minutes. Here you can trade/invest in Equity Intraday & Delivery, F&O, Commodity, Currency and Direct Mutual Funds. I will show you step by step account opening process along with screenshots for better understanding.Annual Maintenance Charge: NIL(You pay Rs 45+GST only for the month in which you trade. Otherwise it is completely FREE if you keep your account idle even if you hold shares in the demat account)Brokerage: Flat Rs 20 per trade for all segments.Documents Required (scanned copies):If your PAN is KYC Verified, you need only two documents:SignatureBank Proof: One Cancelled Cheque or Last 6 Months Bank StatementIf your PAN is not KYC Verified, you will need the following documents:PAN CardAadhaar Card (Front & Back)Cancelled Cheque or Last 6 Months Bank StatementPassport size PhotoSignatureLets us now proceed to open 5Paisa Account!1.Go to 5Paisa Trading & Demat Account Opening Page by clicking here: Partners EliteA page like this will open.Fill your Full Name, Mail id and Mobile No.Keep the tick on “I authorize 5paisa….”.Click on GET STARTED.2. A page like this will open.Write your PAN No in the box and click on Verify. A popup like this will appear.Click on Ok.3. Enter your DOB(Date of Birth).Next, OTPs will be sent to your Mobile No and Mail Id.In Verify Contact Details, enter the OTPs in respective boxes and then click on Verify below both the boxes. A sample page will look like this.4. Enter your Bank Account Number and IFSC Code of the branch in Bank Details. MICR Code, Bank Branch, Bank name will be fetched automatically. A sample page is shown below.Click on Verify.A popup like this will appear.Click on Ok. Then click on Proceed.5. A page like this will open.In Personal Details, select your Gender and Marital Status. Your Name will be pre-filled from previous details. Enter your Mother’s Name & Father’s Name. Select your Educational Qualification & Occupation from the drop down boxes.Click on More. Select your Annual Income. Keep Resident Status as Resident, Exp in Stock Market as 01, Net Worth/ Portfolio Value as 10000.A sample page will look like this.6. In FATCA Details, keep Nationality as Indian and Country of Birth as India. Select Source of Income. For Eg: Select Business if you run any business.Tick both the boxes of “I have read and accepted the Declaration” & “I am neither mentally challenged…..”.A sample page will look like this.Click on Proceed.7. Next page will look like this.Enter the address mentioned in your Aadhaar Card in Correspondence Address.Keep the tick on “Permanent Address same as above”. Otherwise you will have to have upload separate proof for that.Click on Proceed.8. In next page:Keep the tick on “I agree to purchase 1 unit of….. for FREE”.Keep the tick on “Full Service Demat Account”.Tick both the boxes of “I/We have read and agreed to the terms….”.A sample filled page will look like this.Click on Proceed.9. In next page you will have to upload scanned copy of your documents.If your PAN No is KYC Verified, you will only have to upload documents for Signature & Bank Proof.For others:Upload scanned copies of your PAN Card, Signature, Photo. In Address Proof (Correspondence), select correspondence address proof as Aadhaar Card. Enter the front and back side scanned images of your Aadhaar Card in the two drag and drop boxes. In Bank Proof, upload one cancelled cheque or last 6 months ban statement.If you want to activate derivatives segment(Futures & Options), tick on Derivatives. Then choose the Financial Proof from the drop down menu. A list of options is available like Last 6 Months Bank Statement, Salary Slip, Form 16 etc.A sample page will look like this.Click on Proceed.10. Next page will look like this.If are using laptop/webcam, select Allow for “Use your camera” pop-up. Else you can click Send Me Link to get a sms link on your registered mobile no to open the same link on mobile so that you can use your mobile’s front camera.Click on OK, Got It. The you will have to record a 6 seconds selfie video for self-verification by clicking on Start Capture. After recording video, click on Proceed.11. In next page you will be required to e-sign your document using Aadhaar OTP.Click on “eSign Now” as shown in image below.Next page will look like this.You name will be pre-filled.Click on Submit.12. Next page will look like this.Tick on “I hereby authorize NSDL e-Governance…..”.Enter your Aadhaar Number in the box.Click on Send OTP.An will will be sent to your Aadhaar registered mobile no.Enter the OTP and click on Submit.13. A new page like this will appear.Thats it!You have completed all the steps.A pdf version of your signed document will be mailed to you.It will take 1 working day for your account to get activated.Post activation, Login ID & Password will be mailed to you.Do not forget to send POA form by post which will be present in the same e-mail where pdf version of your signed document will be sent.If you face any difficulty in the above process do comment!Things that beginners in trading/investing should consider:Trading is not just about punting in the market. It is a lot more organized and a lot more knowledge driven. Even through trading pertains to the short term there is a method you need to follow. For example, you need to understand how events will impact stocks and how to read and interpret technical charts. Be self-driven; you cannot be a successful trader relying on calls and tips from sources.Trade with the money you are willing to lose. Trading is not about shooting in the dark. Instead, you must be clear about how much you are willing to lose. When you allocate capital to trading, focus on protecting this capital. Document how much you are willing to lose in any trade; in a day and overall depletion in capital you can tolerate. Once these limits are breached, have the discipline to sit in the sidelines and re-assess.There is nothing like a part-time trader. You need to allocate full time and effort to be a successful trader. It entails monitoring stocks, monitoring positions and reviewing risk in the market. Be ready to invest your time in trading.As a beginner, keep your stock universe and number of open positions in check. Focus on a maximum of one or two stocks during a session. Tracking and finding opportunities is easier with just a few stocks. Don’t take too much risk or don’t stake all your capital in one go. Keep your capital and profits separately. You can take higher risk on your profits than on your core capital.Cheap crap is crap anyway. Don’t get obsessed with the lure of penny stocks and beaten down stocks. Especially, be wary of stocks that have corrected 80-90% from their peaks. They could be classic value traps.For a long term investor, time matters more than timing. But, if you are a trader with a short term view, then timing can make all the difference to your performance. When you are trading a stock for a 10% return in a month, a 3-4% difference can have a substantial impact on your eventual returns. Use supports and resistances as well as momentum indicators to time trades as close to the tipping points as possible.Just as traders have an entry rule, they must also have a “rush for the exits” rule. Stop loss is one approach, but even otherwise, you must identify certain macro conditions that could trigger exit. For example, it could be a sharp fall in GDP growth, or a sharp fall in quarterly margins, or a rise in inflation or even a sharp fall in the rupee. Once you see the triggers, just rush for the exit.How you place the order is important when you are a beginner in trading. A trade in a volatile market should ideally be a limit order. But if you are buying in a falling market or if you are selling in a rising market, then market orders work better. When the stock liquidity is thin, market orders are preferred over limit orders.If you earned 30% on a stock in a month; remember it is an exception not the rule. If something is too good to be true, then it is probably not true. You need to be realistic about profits. A strategy doesn't have to win all the time to be profitable. What is important is that you hold winning trades long enough and cut losing trades quickly.Develop the discipline of trading to a plan early on. Such a trading plan will have simple answers and ensure that you are not consumed by fear or greed at extreme levels of the market. It is important to follow your formula closely rather than try to chase profits.There is no rocket science about trading. If you get the above 10 basics right, you can actually make a success of your trading journey.

This is a tough one. With new money coming into the world of money transfer/cross border payments, it is indeed a struggle to survive.Full Disclosure: This article was originally published in my blog at https://faisalkhan.com/blogI did a presentation on this long ago (The original presentation can be downloaded from here: Uberization of Money Transfer: 12 Questions every small and medium, independent money transfer operator should ask themselves). For months I’ve been thinking of doing an updated version of the presentation into an article, so here it is. It is a long article, but if you’re from the industry, you will then most likely understand what I have stated and appreciate the solutions.tl;dr: There is hope. Let me assure you of that. There is a 100% hope. Read through the article.The world of money transfer is getting competitive by the minute. Not only is the landscape filled with multiple players, the time, material and monetary resources required to keep abreast of things, is taxing enough for many.The ProblemsThere are 1000s of small and medium, independent money transfer businesses around the world. Most of them are struggling and the ever-present threat of shuttering down is a very serious issue they face.Here are just some of the issues that small money transfer businesses have to deal with:Costs of maintaining licensesThe money required to expand sales & marketing effortsMoney and human resources required to invest and keep up with technologyInvesting in better customer supportEver increasing compliance costsOnline presenceMaintaining access to bankingThe ever-present threat of being de-risked by your bankLicense coverage in other parts of the country and worldLimited payout networkNot being able to expand the type of customers (B2B, B2C, B2B2C payments, for example)Bringing value-added services like bill payment, mobile top-upsLimited pre-funding moneyManaging all this with the daily fire-fighting that is going onHow to compete against the big-guns like Transferwise, Xoom, Western Union, MoneyGram, etc.Technical integration with other players, payment networks and payment systemsTrainingBrand management, etc.If you’re from the industry, then you know, just by reading the above-mentioned list would make anyone’s blood pressure go low. Depression is a real threat (and I’m not joking here).Money transmitters and other MSBs experience real fear of de-risking while banks and credit unions experience what could be imagined fear of banking MSBs.Credit: From: Use Your BSA Risk Assessment to Build Banking Relationships byMark Stetler — Co-founder and CEO RegSmart as appearing in David Landsman Consulting — Daily Digest Newsletter — 26 March, 2019Link: https://www.amlservices.us/The AnalogyI always give this example, so think about the following. If I were to ask you how many banks in the United States, the approximate answer is about 8,000 (give or take). This includes all sorts and types. Large, Small, Community Banks, Credit Unions, etc.How many of them are Tier I banks? with say assets over $500 Billion. The answer might be 10 or 20, or even 50, but let’s round it up to 100. So we have 100 Tier I banks in the US. This leaves us with 7,900 Tier II and Tier III banks.Second question: How many Tier II banks in the US? Tier II would represent assets between $10 Billion to less than $500 Billion. The answer this time around might say 50 or 75 banks. Let’s again round this off to say 200 Tier II banks. So now we have 7,700 Tier III banks left.Tier III banks are banks with assets size under $10 Billion. This represents the majority of small and medium banks in the United States. From one-branch, one-city banks to a few dozen branches and a few states.Now that we have set this viewpoint, let me ask you the following questions:Who provides the software and services for CORE Banking to the Tier I Banks? Answer: they themselves. In most of the cases, these large banks use their own bespoke software, developed and refined over the years. Some of them use vendors like Temenos of Misys, etc.Who provides the software for Tier II and Tier III? Answer: The commercial vendors like Jack Henry & Associates, FIS Global, FiServ, Temenos, Misys (now called Finastra), etc.For most of the 7,700 banks, the technology part is handled by the Big 3 cartel. Yes, it is a cartel, you can listen to this podcast to learn more about how the CORE Banking Cartel in the United States operates:(Around The Coin — Episode 159: The Oligopoly in American Banking that no one talks about).Who Serves Money Transfer Businesses?So, coming to the Money Transfer Businesses, how many of them are there around the world? My guess let say 50 money transfer companies per country (leveling out), and about 200 countries and territories world over, would yield approximately, 10,000 money transfer operators.Again, how many are Tier I Money Transfer Operators (MTOs)? Those that are licensed in multiple countries, that operate and channel more than $10 Billion per year? Probably 10? 20? 30? players. Round it off to 100. So, 100 MTOs.How many of them are Tier II Money Transfer Operators? Those licensed in single &/or multiple geographies, but perhaps operate between $1 Billion to less than $10 Billion? Again, the same number about 100 or so Tier II. Let’s quadruple it to 400 Tier II MTOs.So we then have about 9,500 Tier III MTOs. Licensed in a single market. In some case licensed in multiple locations. Processing well under $1 Billion per year. In most cases, limited geography, limited to a few stores (if at all) and serving a very limited corridor network.Here is the multi-million dollar question: Who are the Jack Henrys or FIS Global or FiServs to the 9,500 Money Transfer Operators around the globe.The answer: No one.That’s right. As a Tier III Money Transfer Operator, you have to fend for yourself. There is no one on your team. You have to walk the journey alone, and fight all the battles, alone. Obstacles plenty, help, practically none.Who’s taking care of you? No one …yet!This is the problem that obsessed me for years. Truth be told, it is one of the problems that has obsessed me. Other is real-time (read: instant), low-value, affordable, cross-border payments. Anyhow, I digress. So before I give the solution (or you could just scroll down), let me amplify the problem.Q1: How close or distant are you from your competition?Are you at par with your competition? Are you close? If we talk about established players like Western Union or MoneyGram, how are you positioned against them? What about the de novo players like Transferwise, Xoom, WorldFirst, etc.? If you are a Tier III player, it is no secret, you envy the established players. You not only envy the de novo players but secretly despise them for pushing the prices lower.Let’s just come out with it: You hate them! Deep down inside, you blame them for your diminishing profits. The truth is, you are too scared to admit the reality yourself. That with the competition, prices are falling. Eventually, they will fall way below the threshold you have marked, in order to survive. This is how the industry works. New entrants bring downward pressure. This is no hidden secret. In fact, you already know about this. Everyone knows about this. The World Bank Group publishes a report literally every quarter for the last 10+ years, highlighting this: Cost of sending money is going down.The World Bank has set a goal to bring the average cost of remittances down to 3% (300 basis points) by the year 2030. Companies like Ripple have said publicly, that if they are not able to bring the price of cross-border money transfer down to 30 basis points (0.3%) — they (Ripple) would have failed in their mission. (See this fireside chat, I had with Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple in 2018 at Money 20/20 Asia in Singapore)Faisal Khan having a fireside chat with Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple at Money 20/20 Asia (in Singapore) 2018.In another 11 years (by 2030), the price of sending money (on average, worldwide) will be 3%. This means in many of the competitive corridors (US-India, UAE-Pakistan, Saudi Arabia-Bangladesh, Hong Kong-Philippines, US-Mexico) the price of sending money will be a few 10s in basis points. Definitely under 1% and most likely under 0.5%.How will you survive then? Or will you even be in business? Will you still blame the incumbents and de novo players?Q2: How strong and prominent is your online social media presence?The world is moving online. If you disagree. Stop reading this and go back to what you were doing.Let me give my own internal study example. Let’s take a market like the United States and pick any particular segment, say, Latin America. This is how the figures for US-LatAm market looked like in 2017:84% of all money transfers were at an off-line, physical location (non-banks)6% of all money transfers were online, by NBFIs (Non-Banking Financial Institutions), i.e. your MSBs / MTOs / MSOs10% of all money transfers were done by banks (be it online, offline, at a branch location, over the phone, internet banking, etc.)In 2010 the online figure was less than 2%. What do you think the online figure will be in 2020? by 2025? and by 2030?Here are my guessesBy 2020: it will be at about 8%By 2025: 15%, andBy 2030: 40% and aboveWestern Union is investing heavily in Western Union online and realizing that the online platform is the next-generation platform to conduct business on, in light of the diminishing physical agent network. WU recognizes this by a story someone once told me (I cannot verify the claim, so if anyone can, please let me know). The story goes that in every Western Union Board meeting, they bring a large printed panaflex poster of a company that has gone out of business because it was complacent. Names such as Kodak, Blockbuster and America Online have commonly been used. It is a reminder to all those on the board, that they have a fiduciary duty towards their shareholders that the company must survive. The company must innovate. The company must not become complacent and one day find out that it is too late to make the turn. Here is a slightly dated summary article of an Earnings Call by WU in Q2 (2017) that I wrote. Compare that summary to Q4 2018 Summary and you will notice, that online is a huge part of the success path.Look at the following two screens from the earnings call presentation:Notice that Westernunion.com is still showing strong growth of 25% (per quarter). Here is another slide from the presentation:Driving digital growth and expansion is their #1 priority for 2019. In this day and age, where banks are derisking themselves and malls are closing down, where the cost of compliance is going high, where cash is frowned upon, agents are struggling and demanding more compensation for declining commissions, where do you think all this is going?WU knows the end game.That may be in 10 years, the size of the physical agents market will perhaps be reduced by 50% Where do you think all that reduced traffic will go to send money? They will go online! WU will eventually cannibalize their Agent network for the online network. This will not be offline vs online. It will be a hybrid solution for some time to come and the online will eventually win. You can read the Western Union Fourth Quarter 2018 Report (PDF) here.By merely having a Twitter account or Facebook page, one does not acquire customers. Most of the Tier III Money Transfer Businesses don’t even have any active social media presence. A very large majority, simply don’t have any presence at all.How many customers are you signing up that came through social media? If the answer is none, you’re dead! You just don’t know it. You cannot just invest in social media and expect everything to be smooth tomorrow. It takes months and months (if not years) of hard work before your online brand reputation even starts to take shape. A classic case of a job well done, that literally took years to establish is XpressMoney. Look at their Twitter feed and it is one of the best ones I follow (and I follow and monitor a lot of feeds). @XpressMoney makes their feed a right mix of work, family, fun and knowledge balance. A lot many money transfer business players in the space have taken their social media cue from @XpressMoney.Q3: How much money are you spending on online advertising and affiliate programs to solicit clients?Sign-up for an affiliate of Transferwise and you can earn serious money up to $ 50 for every user you refer to them. TW’s affiliate program has 1,000s of participants, churning our content on the internet in the hopes of catching new clients. Transferwise is okay with paying out $50 commission to you, for acquiring a new customer. It is estimated that the cost of acquiring a new customer for Western Union or MoneyGram is less than $15 per customer.For others, they are not so lucky. Economies of scale don’t benefit them. They have to fight and up the game to win customers. It is estimated by various analysts that the actual cost of acquisition of a new client by Transferwise is perhaps as high as $75 per customer (if you include costs like advertising, etc.)Tier III providers have it worse. They are already cash strapped. Can you afford to pay an affiliate $50 per every new customer acquired? Even if you did. How much will you earn per customer? $10? $15? $25. How many months before the customer becomes profitable for you? By merely having a Twitter account or Facebook page, one does not acquire customers. Most of the Tier III Money Transfer Businesses don’t even have any active social media presence. A very large majority, don’t have any presence.You have to have a social media strategy and then spend money to execute that strategy. One huge problem with small Tier III providers is that to save money, they will attempt to do everything themselves. They will embark and try to launch their own social media presence and suck at it. They will spend money on ads without knowing how online ads work and blow large sums of money and not get any results. All this will lead to more frustration and throwing in the towel.What happens after this? The natural knee-jerk reaction is to blame everyone else, but yourself for the failures. You need help, but you can’t afford it.Q4: How much money are you spending on your front-end and back-end technology?Relationship building is core differentiator as to why people do business with you (amongst other factors), but a lot of that relies on technology. Technology is the core internal differentiator. Without a solid technology stack, most Money Transfer Operators struggle to make things work. Ask anyone if their IT team is good, and the reply I always hear is “My IT team is the best”. This could not be further from the truth. Whilst, IT teams are generally good. They are not the best. Tier III simply cannot afford to hire nor retain the best of IT.The economics just do not work out.Keeping pace with the technological advances literally requires a small team (read: army). Today you need information architects, API specialists, database specialists, cyber/network security specialists, full-stack developers, UI/UX specialists, and mobile application programmers. Small money transfer operators sometimes live paycheck to paycheck or struggle to save. Asking them to invest $100,000s towards technology investment year-in, year-out, without stopping, would be an economic nightmare leading to bankruptcy.Even with the various vendors out there in the market, who purportedly are looking after your interests (they are not), you don’t save much. Every feature request, every feature unlocking, every bit of report generation or backup exercises, etc. are added billable hours or an increase in the monthly subscription.While Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers have reduced the burden of IT a lot, they don’t necessarily solve the operational quagmire you are in. Death of your business is assured if you do not invest in IT/Technology. Compliance requires more automation and controls. So do your regulators. So do your banking and payment network partners. And, more importantly, so do your customers.With very limited resources, it is no small wonder that almost every small Money Transfer Operator I speak to are struggling on this front and rarely do they admit to others.As friends, I happen to get this candid admission out of them.Q5: How many beneficiary countries do you have access to whilst still being competitive?Most Money Transfer Operators who are classified as Tier III, operate and serve in very specific ethnicity and geography. Some do a few more as they go along, but for a large swath, Tier III MTOs know their niche. For years, they have been operating/serving their focused market. As more de novo players have entered, they now slowly see their corridors being threatened. In addition to this, Tier III operators also lack the time, resources and capital to expand on to other markets. I’ve personally known providers who say are active in Bangladesh and Pakistan and when I ask them why they don’t expand to India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, they always claim they don’t have the bandwidth for it.Same with Tier III providers who service Tanzania and Kenya, why don’t they branch out to Ghana, Rwanda, and Ghana. Same variation of the story always. Don’t have the capital or the technology stack to expand out. It is not as if the Tier III providers are oblivious about aggregators, but they keep citing and I believe them, that in most of the time, aggregators are not able to offer a competitive rate for them to do business.What most Tier III providers don’t realize is that the fewer the corridors, the more risk their business is prone to. It is the proverbial equivalent of putting all your eggs in one basket. Should a corridor go down (for whatever reason), it will have a significant impact on business. Hence, expanding and spreading your risk across multiple markets is always a better choice.Expansion is easy. A competitively priced expansion is not, and, herein lies the problem. How do you expand to other corridors with a price point that is competitive with what the customers are paying right now for those corridors?Q6: Are you considering expanding your licenses to other states & territories?Applying for licensing is expensive when you’re small. Once you have enough traction going, and your market research supports expansion, then, by all means, do it. Reality is most Tier III Money Service Operators (MSOs) sit on the fence when it comes to expansion. Getting additional licensing means committing more human, technological and capital resources to achieve that goal. An option that most Tier III Money Transfer Businesses just can’t exercise.Even if they do get licensed then the corollary of marketing and sales needs to be addressed. Soon enough you realize this is a chicken and the egg situation on so many fronts.You should take a cue from the world of travel agents, or freight forwarders or even the real estate industry. They get access to each other’s markets by leveraging the power of an association. A travel agent joins a hotel or an airline network that enables wider market access. Freight forwarders discovered this years back and that is how freight moves around the world today. The real-estate industry hinges its success behind the Multiple Listing Service(or MLS) which allows a home buyer or seller to gain access to properties that otherwise were not in their real-estate agents geographic or marketing reach.Some examples of collaborative networksIndividual licensing expansion can be a huge capital burden (not to mention, an operating resources burden as well). However, this load can be lightened by leverage or pooling in your license with those of others. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. The MLS success hinged on this. Shared sales are better than no sales.Q7: If your geographic reached expanded by getting licenses in other states, how many more clients do you think you would be able to get?It is always great to daydream… Here are some great questions to daydream over:What if we had a New York license?What if we had a Texas license?What if we had money transmitter licenses for the New England states?What would happen if tomorrow we suddenly had access to the California market?What if we could get a Pan-European license to pick up customers from all over Europe?These are questions you should be asking yourself all the time. Once you’ve asked the questions, the next goal should be to understand the market itself.How big is the market?What sort of opportunity exists?How many players dominate?Which corridors present an opportunity that we could tackle remotely?What are our existing customers saying about these markets?What has our marketing research and surveys told us?Do economies of scale kick in, should we expand to these additional markets?What sort of operational and back-office burden does it create?What do the income estimates say?How profitable will the routes be?What sort of market can we capture and how?Over what period?What marketing budget would be required?How much more additional working capital would be required?Many money transfer operators would like to expand, and believe me, expansion is easy and doable, but you have to do your own market research and study on the feasibility. The merchantability of your expansion plans is something only you know best. The sooner you start devoting time towards the completion of these go-to-market studies, the sooner you would be ready (not to mention confident) in executing such opportunities and actuallyexpanding.Do it.Remember the 5 P’s. Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance!If you are serious about understanding how to go about this, I wrote a slightly tangential article called Architecting a mobile wallet that customers want. You can read on how to map the user journey and conduct surveys, etc. If nothing, it will perhaps give you some form of semblance on how to start thinking about market research & survey.Q8: Is your ability to expand restricted by the lack of capital?Access to capital, i.e. money is a core tenant for any business. Money Transfer Businesses are no exception. Everyone seems to be stuck on a line of thinking that they need to come up with money in order to expand. Traditional thinking would say yes, but if you can recalibrate your mind to think differently, there are many innovative ways to expand, without the need for large amounts of capital injection.Your license is your leverage. You existing markets, customers, your domain knowledge alone are your leverages.What good would a blog post be without a song about money! This is how sadly every independent Money Service Operator that I know of is thinking (a great song called “Gotta Get My Hands on Some Money” by Fatback).In all seriousness, if this is what you are obsessed over, it is a good thing, but direct the obsession towards earning that money with what you have right now, rather than getting money (magically) from somewhere. This is what sales and growth hacking is all about. Finding innovative methods to pump the numbers with minimal or no investment whatsoever.There is a reason I used the word recalibrate your mind. Let go of the traditional approaches and think How, with what you have, can you trade?Capital is not the limiting factor here.Your ability to think-outside-the-box-and-do-deals is.Q9: How are you adding new products & services?Many small and medium MTOs are for years doing the same thing day-in, day-out. Remittance. People sending money to People. Mostly family remittances. Nothing changes over the years. The MSOs become so complacent and ingrained in what they are offering, that I personally think, they are blindsided by the options around them. You need not scale horizontally. You need to look vertically. What are the value-added payments you can offer to your existing clients?Value-Added Chain for P2P Remittances PaymentsThe above is an example diagram of what a typical value-added payment stack looks like in P2P payments. This stack is not etched in stone, so feel free to modify it as per your availability. The goal is to look at payments in a different light and understand what additions, improvements, enhancements can be done.In addition to the above stack, there are also other payment types you may need to look at. Business-to-Consumer payments, (typically denoted as B2C) and this could be a consumer paying a business or vice versa.Start looking at handling business payments. What would it mean from an on-boarding point of view? From a compliance point of view? From a partner-network point of view? There is a HUGE difference between the $630 Billion remittance industry and $100+ Trillion B2B payments industry.To put that into perspective…P2P vs B2B Market Size for Cross Border PaymentsThe P2P market has about 8,000–10,000 players (not counting banks) and the B2B market has about less than 750 players (again, not counting banks).Where do you think more opportunities lie? It does not have to be either/or. You can comfortably service both markets with slight adjustments on your front & back office.Companies big and small today are trading with each other across border lines more than ever before, thereby increasing the need for cross-border payments. The world is flats, but the payments landscape is not quite flat yet.Making your systems ready to handle a multitude of payments will be to your advantage.Q10: It is time to start embracing cryptocurrency?I get a lot of flak for being a proponent of cryptocurrency. I do have my reservations and opinions (like everyone else) of which cryptocurrency is good, which isn’t. Which one is best suited for task X and which is best for task Y. Despite all this, and looking past the punters and speculators or the myopic articles that keep blaming cryptocurrency for all the ills like money laundering, illicit financing, financing of terrorism, etc. — there is the promise of a technology that is slowly reshaping how we interact with money.Investing time in understanding cryptocurrency today will not make you like a fool tomorrow. You don’t have to start big. Go very small. Open multiple cryptocurrency wallets, load them up with $10 and send pocket change across the world. See how the system acts and behaves. Until you don’t try it — you will never get the hang of it.I did this short video on the same topic. Why an understanding of cryptocurrency is critical for your future survival.Admittedly many people that I have had candid discussions with are afraid of it — because they don’t understand it. They need not be. No one was ever born with all the knowledge. Start reading an article once a day and start watching a video once a day. Imagine your knowledge and understanding after say 6 months.Learning about cryptocurrency does not mean your money services business will be dealing in it. Just because you are learning how to bake a cake, does not imply that you will become a bakery next, same goes with cryptocurrency.Play with it. No regulator will stop you. No regulator will fine you. No regulator will give you an enforcement order. As long as you keep this to your personal left, and as a small pilot project, you have nothing to worry about.An investment made in learning today is a whole lot better than being oblivious about it.Is there hope?Of course, there is hope. It would be pointless to write such a log article and not give hope.Hope comes from collaboration. Leverage the strength of each other in the network that collaborates together.I’m reminded by this scene in the movie Shawshank Redemption, in a scene with Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins.When you are faced with dwindling prospects, even thinking rationally and straight becomes an issue. When you see de novo players around you raising tens of millions of dollars, it is difficult not to be jealous.Self-pity starts to creep in. Life is suddenly not fair. You start blaming yourself that you’ve been dealt with a sour hand.There is a saying by the German philosopher Nietzsche (I promise this is the last quote I will use, I think).Stop!Don’t go there. If you stop looking into the darkness of the situation you may be in and look at the bright side, there is so much, you, as an individual money transfer operator can do.Now I will tell you, how to go about it.The SolutionThe solution is simple. It is all about Collaboration and Leveraging the combined resources of each other.Let me explain. The non-technical explanation can be summarized in the diagram below. If the 7,700 or so small and medium money transfer operators of the world unite together, there is immense power in the network they create.Whilst such diagrams as the one above may seem cute for purposes of illustration, you must look through and understand the concept. The concept is saying if small players unite. If small players organize themselves and are not afraid of talking to their competitors (of the same size), if they come together as one, they can leverage the power of the network and create a disruptive force for the competition.To truly understand this concept, look what happened to Uber, or Lyft, or AirBnB or other similar marketplaces. Seemingly disparate and disorganized players — get acclimatized (read: harmonized) under a single brand, unified processes and literally take the carpet out underneath from the incumbent and de novo competitors.Let’s say as a Money Transfer Operator, you need to buy a chair for your office. If a single person walks into a store to buy an office chair, there might not be any discounts for that person. But if 50 companies pool their purchasing power to buy 50 office-chairs, you can bet you bottom dollar that you will get a discount. This is how leveraging works. This effect is called the Economy of Scale. (or Economies of Scale).Here is are the definitions of what Economies of Scale are:Investopedia: Economies of ScaleWikipedia: Economies of ScaleThis is one concept, you have read and understand. For your future may literally depend on it.Here is another great article by Intelligent Economist and this graph that pretty much sums it up:When competing for money transfer businesses collaborate (and we help them do that) then the results are amazing. Suddenly, you have a very large network willing to help out. Networks like BNI and Rotary Club have banked on these ideas for years and have achieved success because of it. Why should the money transfer industry be any different?The whole idea behind the Uberization of money transfer to bring various money transfer operators under one umbrella and empower them with tools, access to networks, resources and more importantly new business that they never had before. Read this article I wrote a long time ago: The Uberization of Money Transfer.You need to get out of your comfort zone for this to happen. If it was that easy, it would have happened already.Nothing ever happens in your comfort zone.If you are willing to open up to ideas that can help you elevate your business from where it is, to a playing field you have perhaps only dreamed of.What do we bring to the table? Lots of things. Technology stack. Information Technology, Access to more banking. Better AML/KYC resources and partnerships, enhanced payment networks and payment processors. Access to different markets. Faster payment rails. Additional transaction types. etc.