The story with banQi began back when we were working on Airfox. For more than a year we became a part of their agile team. At that time they positioned themselves as a wallet and continued to lead the charge to disrupt traditional banking models.
Now let’s fast forward to Brazil where installment purchase was very common. So, a Brazilian retail giant Via Varejo came to Airfox as an investor.
This company owned a network of Casas Bahia markets, where people bought a lot of things by installment purchase. But all the paperwork went offline, it took a lot of time and in the end, customers received a checkbook with a bunch of codes for payment.
To put it straight, the process was long and uncomfortable. They needed a boost and a unique selling proposition, since no market in Brazil has offered online installment purchase before.
So, Airfox presented their new mobile banking solution — banQi, a brand to break down financial barriers in Brazil.