Crunchfish, the Swedish FinTech backed by billionaire Mohammed Al Amoudi, has now come up with a new digital cash fix, Bloomberg writes. The new technology would allow for people to pay merchants in real time, offline and in any currency, including central bank digital currency or crypto.
The idea is meant to be a solution to what happens if the internet goes dark and no one can use their phones or cards.
According to the Bloomberg report, Crunchfish’s tech could help people figure out how to operate without cash or if, for whatever reason, the internet goes down at any point, which was a scenario that Swedish central bank governor Stefan Ingves has said in the past would necessitate cash use.
Crunchfish’s innovation would allow people to have money you can spend at the ready, as if one had a wallet and physical money. The Crunchfish project “works like a checkbook,” Bloomberg writes, where consumers will put money in a special account that can be tapped into if mobile lines are down. After the network is back, consumers can then top up their accounts.
CEO Joachim Samuelsson said the heart of the system is that they “maintain that spending limit,” and ensure that merchants wouldn’t be left holding the bag if customers spend more than they have.
Right now Crunchfish is running a pilot project with Swish, the biggest Swedish payments provider. The project could boost cross-border transactions if it’s successful and could help lay down the foundation for the e-krona, which is already the subject of a pilot project from Riksbank.
Digital payments and mobile wallets have been on the rise as of late, with the percentage of people in the U.S. using them going from 38 percent before the pandemic to 55 percent late last fall. Globally, 88 percent of shoppers surveyed across eight countries used them.
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