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Malaysia’s PayNet Partners FassPay to Help Small Merchants Process Card Payments with Mobile Devices as POS Terminals

Malaysia’s PayNet, the national payments network and shared central infrastructure for that nation’s capital markets, has decided to work with FassPay, a subsidiary of Soft Space, which will be a third-party acquirer for MyDebit, the country’s local debit card scheme.

This new appointment should allow Fasspay to acquire smaller merchants and provide them with its suite of payment solutions which includes their Tap on Phone Payment solution, Fasstap — a product that allows merchants to use their own mobile devices like POS terminals to take card payments.

Merchants looking to sign up with Fasspay don’t have to be physically present as the onboarding and approval process (including Know-Your-Customer or KYC checks) is handled remotely via a step-by-step procedure that may be completed online.

FassPay has also teamed up with digital commerce platform Elokal to digitally support 2,000 small businesses in rural areas by helping them accept cashless payments.

Chris Leong, Chief Executive Officer of Fasspay, explained that Fasstap is a “robust” Cloud-enabled solution that eliminates the need for costly and dedicated payment hardware – which makes it viable or practical for small merchants. Leong also noted that the solution provides access to businesses to tap into their “value-added” loyalty platform and various other developer-based services.

Leong also mentioned that Tap on Phone payments are “reliable and secure, so merchants can be confident in knowing that their solutions face little to no risk.” He added that with their collaboration with PayNet, they think that Fasstap will “create an innovation cycle to further spur contactless usage in Malaysia.”

Leong further noted:

“The collaboration between PayNet and Soft Space, which began with a pilot launch in October 2018, has enabled merchants, particularly smaller merchants to go cashless and accept MyDebit payments without incurring the monthly expenses for a separate card payment terminal. Merchants that sign up with Fasspay would be able to use their Android mobile devices to accept MyDebit payments with the “Tap on Phone” solution called “Fasstap” by leveraging on near-field communication capabilities.”

Peter Schiesser, Group Chief Executive Officer of PayNet, stated:

“PayNet has partnered with Soft Space and now Fasspay to introduce the Tap on Phone solution to merchants for the acceptance of MyDebit in promoting a more cost-effective payment option. The Covid-19 pandemic has raised concern about safety and hygiene, and we are pleased that with the Fasstap solution, merchants can meet their customers’ preference for contactless payments. PayNet strives to offer payment eco-systems that are resilient, competitive and accessible to all. This is in line with our mission to be a trusted enabler of inclusive and collaborative financial ecosystems, which supports the nation’s vision to transform into a digitally-driven, high income nation and a regional leader in the digital economy.”

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A Day in the Life of Indie Filmmaker Jordyn Romero

Whether you’re raising funds for a creative project or a new business idea, running your own crowdfunding campaign is no easy feat. It takes a healthy dose of passion, discipline, and commitment to bring your ideas and concepts to life, and get your backer community excited about them. Ever wondered what a day in the life of a creative entrepreneur on Indiegogo is like? We’re here to give you an exclusive glimpse into 24 hours of their day. 

Juggling film production and a crowdfunding campaign can be challenging, so we’re always inspired when we encounter someone who can do it all. Meet California-based indie filmmaker Jordyn Romero who is in Sri Lanka, filming on location right now. Together with producer Leah de Leon, they are running a campaign to fund their documentary We Are Like Waves — a film that adapts the true story of Sanu, one of the first professional female surfers in Sri Lanka. 

This documentary film explores and captures the struggles and breakthroughs of Sanu in an industry dominated by the culture of patriarchy:

“We Are Like Waves is an intimate, powerful story that the world needs now. This story will shed light on the continued push for gender equality in the sport of surfing, and demonstrates how surfing can be used as a tool for women’s empowerment. Not only is Sanu a role model for the young girls in her village, but through the screen, she will become a role model for girls and women. We aim to create a platform for deeper discussions around gender norms, beauty standards, and family expectations within the context of surfing. This story is not just Sanu’s, it is the story of many female surfers around the world.“

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Your contribution to their campaign will allow Jordyn and Leah to conclude filming and finish their movie, getting this must-see story out to screens everywhere, in a world where the stories of women of color are missing some real representation.

Read on to see how Jordyn spends 24 hours in her day, working as an indie filmmaker on location in Sri Lanka Then scroll down for a brief Q&A to get to know her better, learn more about We Are Like Waves, and get inspired!

7 A.M. Wake up and make a glass of warm lemon water. Then I read the daily excerpt from “The Daily Stoic” and I journal. Sometimes it’s a few pages, but other days it’s just some bullet points of gratitude.

8 A.M. I go on a nice walk. I like to bring a cup of tea and listen to a podcast. Everyday I try to mix it up too and find new paths in my neighborhood.

9 A.M. I eat a light breakfast. I call it breakfast #1 and it’s typically a bowl of fruit. Then, I check my calendar, email, and social media. I have a work journal where I write down my To-Do’s.

10 A.M. This is when I start doing the creative part of my work. It’s when I’m most motivated and in flow. Most of the time, I am writing and editing my film. Sometimes I am creating pitch materials for future films, updating my website, or other graphic work.

12 P.M. Begin to shift towards business-minded tasks and away from creative ones — unless the flow is still going. I try to ride that as long as I can. This means taking calls and meetings, posting on Instagram, and more email.

1 P.M. I eat lunch at this time, and continue doing business tasks!

4 P.M. Always have an afternoon adventure. Sometimes I go surfing, take a hike, do a workout class, or hangout with friends (weird to think about with COVID). This is the most important time of the day to me. I’ve never accepted the burnout mentality, and so I embrace this time to have fun and enjoy every single day.

7 P.M. Dinner time! I have really gotten into cooking lately — everything from curries to grilling. Typically with a good playlist and eating outside if it’s warm enough.

8 P.M. Love to have a cup of tea. My friend blends her own loose leaf tea, and I love it. Sometimes I watch some TV, or have a good read. Other times, I have a creative boost and will lean into that and work a little more. 

9 P.M. Around this time, I start to get ready for bed. I’m definitely someone who needs 9-10 hours a night. It’s prioritized because I literally cannot perform with any less.

Now that you’ve gotten a glimpse of what her day is like running a crowdfunding campaign for a film, get more inspiration in our exclusive Q&A with Jordyn!

INDIEGOGO: How and why did you and Leah become documentary filmmakers? Was it something you always intended for yourselves? 

JORDYN ROMERO: I came to filmmaking because of my passion for the outdoors. I grew up making ski edits of my friends and I with a GoPro Hero 4. I went to Chapman University for college which ranks as one of the top film schools in the country – I came in undeclared. I will never forget one night in the dorms I rented the most beautiful surf film, and knew that I wanted to make one like it one day. The next week, I applied to the documentary program with those ski films and have never looked back since. Today, I continue with my passion — redefining and amplifying diverse women on screen in the outdoor industry.

INDIEGOGO: What makes your Indiegogo project unique? 

JORDYN: Our Indiegogo is unique because We Are Like Waves has already been shot and is nearly finished. After confirming that I was going to make this film, I was in Sri Lanka two months later. This wasn’t nearly enough time to raise money to fund the film, instead I took out a personal loan and self-funded the trip. It was a huge risk, but I was confident in the story and knew that we would be able to raise money after production to pay back the loan and cover post-production costs. We are so thankful that we didn’t wait to raise money to go, because just a week after we finished shooting, the world shut down.

INDIEGOGO: How did you come across this project and Sanu’s life story?

JORDYN: I found the story through a podcast that featured one of the co-founders of Sea Sisters Sri Lanka, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching local women how to swim and surf. After listening to the episode, I learned that in Sri Lanka there is a cultural mindset that surfing is not meant for girls. Fathers are afraid of what might happen to their daughters, women are taught to stay close to home and they never learn. The stories and social issues shared on the podcast just stuck with me. I reached out to Sea Sisters in an Instagram message and two months later, the film was in full production on the South Coast of Sri Lanka.

INDIEGOGO: What’s your biggest piece of advice for women who want to make movies or have a career in the film industry?

JORDYN: It’s amazing to think about everything you’ve ever watched in your life. I bet almost everything has been made by a man. This means that the entire point of view was through a male’s lens. Nothing wrong with that, but imagine how those stories could be told if through the female lens? How would you see things differently? How would our world be different? Your voice matters and what you have to say matters. 

INDIEGOGO: What tools would you recommend to anyone starting their own crowdfunding campaign or project? 

JORDYN: The success of our crowdfunding campaign came from our strong email campaigns. Canva was another great tool to build beautiful and engaging content to promote our campaign on social media, Instagram stories in particular. Tools like Slack, Google Drive and UNUM were used often for communication, organization, and social media planning (obsessed with our instagram feed). And of course, Facetime. Leah (Producer) and I would spend so much time cheering each other on – spending a lot of time together even though we can’t “be together” in the pandemic.

INDIEGOGO: What’s next for you and Leah after this campaign fundraising round?

JORDYN: Next it’s time to finish the film! We’re at the rough cut stage of the film – so we are really, really close. After we hit picture lock, the film will be scored, colored, sound mixed. We’ll have a polished film and the best part can begin – film festivals and screenings! We will have a year long film festival tour and a small California film tour, hitting our favorite places along the coast, building community and sharing this story with the world. 

Want to help Jordyn and Leah complete their film We Are Like Waves? Donate to their Indiegogo campaign page or follow them on Instagram.

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Celebrity VC fund unveils $1m NFT contest judged by Snoop Dogg and Mark Cuban

Sound Ventures, a venture capital fund comprising celebrities, musicians, and a billionaire, are offering at least $1 million for the “most innovative” idea for a nonfungible token, or NFT over the next week.

Announced on April 5, the event invites anyone from around the world to pitch their NFT project to a team of eight judges before April 12. According to the competition page, it doesn’t matter if the pitches are little more than an idea or a fully-fledged product already on the market. The wording also suggests the contest’s winners will have the opportunity to work alongside Sound Ventures long-term.

“Those applying should be interested in building a company over the long-term,” the announcement says.

Up to 30 finalists will be selected to partake in a private live pitch with the judges on April 21, just over two weeks from now.

Those selected are not required to accept the investment and there are no set terms for how the for how investment will be distributed. The contest’s FAQ states: “Investment amounts and terms will vary by company.” 

It is not clear how many pitches will be selected from the 30 finalists, but the competition page suggests the investments across those selected could total more than $1 million.

Sound Ventures’ co-founders, Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary, will sit on the judging panel with the remaining six judges including NBA Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire Mark Cuban, rapper Snoop Dogg, EDM artist 3LAU, NFT investo Whale Shark and Metakovan, and Scalar Capital co-founder Lina Xie.

$1 million Sound Ventures Competition Judges: Sound Ventures

Whale Shark and Metakovan, although not well known as some of the other judges, are some of the most respected in the NFT space. The Whale Shark recently tokenized a vault containing their NFT collection, allowing investors to buy into it. It currently has a market cap of almost $23 million. Metakovan, or Vignesh Sundaresan, is the winner of Beeple’s $69 million Christie’s auction last month, and a prominent NFT collector.

The contest was set up by Sound Ventures’ co-founders, famous Actor Ashton Kutcher and talent manager Guy Oseary. Oseary clients include U2 and long-time business partner Madonna. The pair also run VC firm A-Grade Investments, which has a history of supporting successful projects such as Airbnb, Foursquare, Shazam, SoundCloud, Spotify, and Uber.

Ashton Kutcher has already made a questionable name for himself in the NFT sector auctioning a digital copy of a notebook scribble in August 2020. The original drawing was destroyed to showcase the advantages of digital over physical artworks, with the funds raised said to go towards for ecological conservation non-profits.

Ashton Kutcher showcases his now-incinerated artwork

The artwork titled “The Eye of The Beholder” was sold for 20 ETH (currently worth $42,600) in the auction.

Celebrity VC fund unveils $1m NFT contest judged by Snoop Dogg and Mark Cuban

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March 2021: Top Campaigns

The pandemic keeps marching on — or is it March that kept pandemic-ing on? — but that hasn’t kept a new class of campaigns from marching into our monthly Top Five list. A birdfeeder with facial recognition takes the top step of the podium, while a nano-gaming device, a tripod-avec-backpack, a Trekky-friendly documentary, and a wireless car connector round out the list.

Here are our top campaigns for March 2021. 

1. Bird Buddy: Smart Bird Feeder

  • $6,473,925 USD total raised
  • 28,221 backers
  • ($5,092,995 USD by 22,921 backers on another platform)
  • Ljubljana, Slovenia

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s a bird. But what kind? A blue jay! Wait, they’re supposed to be blue right? Hmm. A black jay? Is that a thing?

Stop second-guessing your bird identifying skills with Bird Buddy, our top campaign this month. Bird Buddy is the world’s first bird feeder with built-in AI recognition technology so you can identify all your feathered visitors now matter how rare they are. 

How does it work? Bird Buddy notifies you whenever birds stop by, takes their photos, and organizes them in a beautiful collection you can easily share. And unlike your, um, more folksy approach to birding (“I swear that chirpy one used to be friends with that brownish-cardinal-without-a-crest-y one…”), Bird Buddy always knows who’s in front of the lens. Bird Buddy recognizes over a thousand bird species, even that rare one you’ve always wondered about. So rejuvenate the birding tradition with Bird Buddy and get notifications that actually make you feel better about your day. It’ll have you flying.

2. AYA-NEO Handheld Gaming Device

  • $2,167,143 USD raised
  • 2,386 backers
  • Shenzhen, China

A wise man once said, “he who holds a 7nm AMD Ryzen APU AAA-capable gaming device in his hands, holds the universe between his palms.” Now you can be a part of the journey to bringing this ancient aphorism to life.

AYA-NEO is the world’s first 7nm handheld gaming device, and it’s quite the powerhouse at that. Equipped with a 7-inch screen, a cutting edge Ryzen 5 4500U processor, and a six-core processor with 4.0Ghz max turbo frequency, it blows all other handheld gaming consoles out of the water. 

AYA-NEO handles demanding games with ease. With 50% more cores than previous generation and competition, the hexa-core design also ensures great multitasking performance. 16 GB of LPDDR4x 4266 RAM, and up to 1TB NVME SSD, means AYA NEO will provide you with a smooth gaming experience AND fast loading times. The universe is quite the thing to hold, so tread lightly with this amount of power in your hands.

3. AAWireless: Android Auto Connector

  • $1,897,254 USD
  • 23,261 backers
  • Groningen, Netherlands

Do you have an Android Auto compatible car or multimedia unit? Would you like to connect wirelessly without the use of cables? Don’t want to spend a fortune on upgrading your multimedia unit or the whole car? Is that even possible? Is your phone running Android 9 or higher? Have any more questions? Still with us?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’re a top candidate for the AAWireless Android auto connector. AAWireless is a simple plug-and-play device that allows your Android-compatible units to use a WiFi connection instead of connecting via a USB cable. Simply connect the AAWireless box to your car’s USB port and forget about it.

So one final question for you: sick of wires? Then it may be time to get with AAWireless.

4. The Star Trek Voyager Documentary

  • $1,277,795 USD raised
  • 11,963 backers
  • Los Angeles, United States

If you’ve ever dreamt of kicking it in Delta Quadrant with some Ferengi over a few Romulan ales, STOP READING. The Ferengi are not to be trusted, the Delta Quadrant is inhospitable at best, and Romulan ale? Come on now, do you want to be put away in a Starfleet brig? Trade embargoes are real and to be respected. This is a Federation ship, jeez.

If any of this made sense to you, our number 4 campaign has something to meld your mind with. The production team of The Deep Space 9 Documentary and For the Love of Spock are now bringing their next generation of Star Trek documentaries to market. The Star Trek Voyager Documentary is upon us. 25 years after the series’ first airing, go behind the scenes on the USS Voyager and learn how it was made. 

Back this campaign and “make it so.” (Yeah, we know it’s the wrong generation, but can you fault us for loving JLP? We didn’t think so.)

5. Gitzo Légende Tripod and Backpack

  • $630,612 USD raised
  • 1,238 backers
  • Ramsey, United States

Creators rely on their gear to tell their stories. But they’re often held back by cheap equipment that breaks and requires expensive repair and replacement. Not only does this impact their ability to get the shot, but it contributes to a throwaway culture that devastates our environment.

With over 100 years of manufacturing excellence and craftsmanship, Gitzo set out to develop a new standard of products that are better for the photographer — and for the planet.

Meet Légende, travel photography gear designed to last. Made from premium eco-friendly materials and offering free spare parts and an unlimited warranty, Légende offers content creators peace of mind with high-quality gear they can depend on. 

And Gitzo has an offer in their back pocket. For every Légende claimed on Indiegogo, Gitzo will donate 5% to Wild Shots Outreach who provide education and scholarship programs for young people in the environmental conservation field.

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Interested in exploring more campaigns? Check out our team favorites.

Rankings, amount raised, and other stats are current as of 04/01/21.

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Bitcoin Cash Price Prediction: BCH/USD Price Turns Bearish; Can the $540 Support Hold?

BCH Price Analysis – April 3

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is likely to continue with the downward momentum as revealed by the technical indicator.

BCH/USD Market

Key Levels:

Resistance levels: $635, $655, $675

Support levels: $500, $480, $460

BCHUSD – Daily Chart

Yesterday, BCH/USD peaked at $597 but now following a downward movement within the channel. Meanwhile, the price not staying above $600 ruins the long-term technical picture of the coin. Bitcoin cash will have to hold this ground to guide against the further downward pressure and the closest support expects the coin at $530. Once it is eliminated, the downside may likely grow, with the next goal supporting $500, $480, and $460 levels.

What is the Next Direction for Bitcoin Cash?

The Bitcoin cash is hovering at $552.02 but yet to break above the upper boundary of the channel. On the upside, a sustained move above $600 may ease the initial downside pressure and create momentum for the bulls with the focus to move the market to the next resistance levels of $635, $655, and $675 respectively. At the moment, the RSI (14) nosedives below 55-level, which indicates that the downward momentum may likely play out.

However, we realize that the recent uptrend within the ascending channel was necessary for the bullish action. More so, the support formed between $541 and $595 provided air-tight protection allowing the buyers to concentrate on stirring action to the north.

When compared with Bitcoin, the daily chart reveals that the bears have started showing some commitment to BCH trading. However, following the recent negative signs, the trend may continue to go down if the sellers continue to pump more pressure into the market.

BCHBTC – Daily Chart

More so, as the RSI (14) signal line nosedives below 55-level, if the buyers can hold the support of 0.0093 BTC, the market price may likely continue an upward movement, while pushing further may take it to the resistance level of 0.011 BTC and above but a retest could lower the price to the supports of 0.0085 BTC and below.

Bitcoin Cash Price Prediction: BCH/USD Price Turns Bearish; Can the $540 Support Hold?

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