ecoo, a coin for local businesses - DU DA, Papers and Farner Consulting develop a platform for customized, earmarked payment instruments to be piloted in Switzerland

29/10/2020

Press Release

ecoo, a coin for local businesses – DU DA, Papers and Farner Consulting develop a platform for customized, earmarked payment instruments to be piloted in Switzerland

Zurich, Switzerland, October 29, 2020

The Swiss town of Wetzikon announces a new offering for local businesses amid the Coronavirus pandemic: an electronic voucher program with vouchers that are solely redeemable at local businesses

ecoo, the revolutionary digital platform for earmarked transactions, is a user-friendly app that allows residents to make local purchases using special tokens

The idea and technology were created by top-class partners DU DA Data & Commtech by Farner, Papers and Farner Consulting and was built on the Tezos blockchain

Today, against the backdrop of a global pandemic that has caused a 3.8% drop in Swiss GDP 2020 that has disproportionately harmed small businesses, the Swiss town of Wetzikon announced a new offering for local businesses via its Coronavirus credit line: electronic vouchers (or eCoupons) which are redeemable exclusively at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Wetzikon. The initial disbursement of over 250’000 Swiss francs (USD 280’000) will be distributed to the 25’000 inhabitants of Wetzikon to bolster SMEs in the local community.

ecoo: the safe, easy, digital solution

In order to facilitate the program, DU DA and crypto valley company Papers Corp. have developed a new platform ecoo: a secure, simple, digital solution for issuing and managing the eCoupon cycle. With ecoo, earmarked funds in the form of coins or points can be made available as credit in a smartphone app. After a simple registration process, consumers – in this case the population of Wetzikon – can load $11 USD in “WetziKoins” for free into their mobile ecoo wallet. The affiliated partners – the town’s SMEd – collect the WetziKoins via app and later exchange the collected coins for real money at the city administration – again via app.

ecoo thus enables a closed cycle of an earmarked “currency” in a clearly defined ecosystem. At the same time ecco is applicable as simple and secure as familiar apps, which are used millions of times every day for payments in shops and supermarkets or for money transfers between friends.

Ruedi Rüfenacht, Mayor of Wetzikon stated: “Under the current circumstances it is imperative for us to act in favour of the local economy in a sustainable manner. With ecoo, we have found a viable solution to motivate the people of Wetzikon to shop in local stores instead of just buying online or from wholesalers outside our town.”

ecoo – the innovative commtech solution that goes beyond the public sector use case

With the launch of ecoo, DU DA, Farner and Papers are proud to unveil this innovative, simple and infinitely scalable solution that can be applied to numerous other use cases, such as:

tourism resorts, where guests pay with “Tourism Coins” in selected stores and local businesses and for transportations

events or festivals, where visitors pay with coins, while partners, e.g. a catering vendor, collect the event currency via app

companies that want to support employees with meal vouchers for local restaurants such as the nearby deli or the pop-up restaurant down the street

health insurance companies that credit the policyholders with “Health Points”, redeemable at selected partners. This simplifies the organization of healthcare partnerships, for example in the field of health promotion.

ecoo – the result of a strong partnership

ecoo is the result of a close collaboration between DU DA, Farner Consulting and Papers and is built on the Tezos blockchain. While DU DA took care of idea and concept, definition of user processes, design and development of the apps, Papers oversaw the blockchain and security-relevant components. In developing ecoo, the teams prioritized usability for day to day app users and worked to ensure the highest security standards and full regulatory compliance.

ecoo was built on Tezos, a decentralized blockchain network designed to offer the upgradability, security, and continuity required for long-term, high-value applications. The protocol’s on-chain upgrade process, Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm, and ability to facilitate formal verification made it a great fit for this project. By using Tezos, ecoo users avoid any administrative overhead and transactions can be tracked and evaluated anonymously in real time.

Alessandro De Carli, CEO of Papers: “Blockchain solutions often tend to get lost in technical details. Our expertise in the area of mobile security and blockchain was therefore ideally complemented by the DU DA team. Together we were able to create a secure and pragmatic solution that works flawlessly in the background – where users don’t notice any of the technical complexity built-in.”

Marc van Nuffel, CEO DU DA: “With over a decade of experience in developing user-optimized products, we are happy to work with Papers. They are the perfect, highly experienced partner to merge our skills with new innovative areas such as block chain and smart contracting, while maintaining the highest level of usability.”

For more information go to https://www.ecoo.ch/en/