Q & A

{FinTech watch: OroPocket} ‘Banking the unbanked’ by enabling investment in ever liquid digital gold & silver

This fast-growing FinTech platform enables users to invest in digital gold and silver as a safe hedge against inflation and also utilize these investments for day-to-day expenses via UPI and asset-backed cards.

Everyone is planning their retirement almost from the day they enter a job or start a business. While investments into traditional financial systems are most relied on, are they truly trustworthy? And then that old devil ‘inflation’ will bring down the best of us.

OroPocket claims to provide an alternative investment platform that enables users to have financial freedom and owned funds. The Tech Panda spoke to Tarusha Mittal, COO and Co-Founder of OroPocket, who has been vigorously working in the blockchain and crypto since 2012.

Tarusha Mittal

People invest their hard-earned money in banks thinking it the safe alternative available. This made us dig deeper to understand the loophole that the traditional financial system experiences and come up with a decentralised platform to empower the users with macro-level services

Co-founded in 2017 by Mittal and Mohit Madan, it was when the Co-Founders were working together on Ethx (OroPocket’s former brand) that the thought of coming up with an alternate investment platform occurred.

“We witnessed how volatile the market is due to inflation. The idea to come up with ‘OroPocket’ sprouted as a sheer wish to help more people invest without having their capital gains being impacted by inflation,” Mittal recalls.

There have been multiple incidents in the recent years where they saw people lose their life savings, becoming a victim to banking failures and scams like PMC Bank and Yes Bank.

“People invest their hard-earned money in banks thinking it the safe alternative available. This made us dig deeper to understand the loophole that the traditional financial system experiences and come up with a decentralised platform to empower the users with macro-level services,” she explains further.

“And at the same time, we wanted to build an ecosystem that offers the right investment plan; hence the inclusion of gold, as it has always been considered a hedge against inflation,” she adds.

Our platform helps users save their assets for as long as they want, in order to build their wealth through planned investment which helps them gain economic and financial freedom

The platform ensures 100% insured assets, is audited by IDBI, and has collaborated with several BRINKS vaults for storage and safety of assets. The platform runs on Tezos, Polygon, and Ethereum and the tokenised assets, XTZGold and XTZSilver, are backed by physical gold and silver in a 1:1 ratio.

They are trying to make a difference in a world where the majority of the population remains unbanked.

“We are banking the unbanked, all with a phone and an Internet connection, the only thing that has penetrated in these places, mostly.”

What They Do

OroPocket enables users to diversify their portfolio beyond traditional assets by investing in multiple digital assets (digital gold and silver).

“In fact, to make our offering more accessible to a wider audience, we came up with a novice feature wherein users can use their digital assets as real money, in real-time using UPI and our asset backed card,” Mittal explains.

The platform is backed by blockchain, which gives users the assurance of secured investment. It also provides user’s digital investments alternatives with respect to their country of residence.

To make our offering more accessible to a wider audience, we came up with a novice feature wherein users can use their digital assets as real money, in real-time using UPI and our asset backed card

“We provide a thorough reserve of products from digital gold, digital silver, cryptocurrencies, and many more products to come,” she adds.

One can invest into multiple asset classes, grow their wealth, and enjoy 100% liquidity.

“Our platform helps users save their assets for as long as they want, in order to build their wealth through planned investment which helps them gain economic and financial freedom,” she says.

With OroPocket, any user anywhere in the world, gains access to bank-like services, without any of the red tape or tedium of traditional banks. The platform allows any wage earner to choose to save their salary in actual 24K gold, which is 100% insured and always liquid.

“This saves people from the dangers of hyper-inflation and transfer costs, allowing them to make investments while still staying liquid for times of need. We are creating a framework to bring financial inclusion and freedom to all,” she says passionately.

OroPocket Features

The platform can provide a lucrative plan for saving, investing, and retiring early, by keeping more money in the consumer’s pocket, with no hidden charges. It charges only 0.25% fee on all transactions. No storage fee, no insurance fee, no hidden fees whatsoever, says Mittal.

“We all want to build wealth and a better and more secure financial future for ourselves. Investments and savings are not only going to make you feel better about yourself but also help you accumulate financial security and unlock economic freedom of choice,” she says.

We all want to build wealth and a better and more secure financial future for ourselves. Investments and savings are not only going to make you feel better about yourself but also help you accumulate financial security and unlock economic freedom of choice

The platform provides a slew of unique features which include:

Asset based Debit card: Their exclusive asset-based card provides complete liquidity. Users can spend their assets anytime and anywhere all across the world though a single card for shopping online or offline and even to withdraw cash at any ATM.

Multiple asset-based investment: While most of their contemporaries offer gold-based investment by buying and selling of digital gold, OroPocket offers a multitude of assets to choose from like gold, silver, and other tokens.

Tokenized Tezos: OroPocket gold and silver are the first real world assets on the Tezos chain. They provide high throughput and low fees, with strong on-chain governance backed by blockchain, which enables effective micro-transactions and auditing.

OpenDeFi on Blockchain: Open DeFi allows use of assets in the real world with blockchain-based finance applications. The entire framework encourages investors to get involved in order to enjoy yields on long term investments, using real world assets like stocks, gold, silver, etc. It bridges the gap between physical assets and DeFi, which allows staking assets or instant loans easy.

Future Plans

In three years, OroPocket is projected to have US$30 million in AUM, with a plethora of assets being tokenised and many financial services available on top of them.

Blockchain really represents a quantum leap in technology and technological shifts follow patterns of slow, then sudden and entire change. This would mean that the higher likelihood is that 100% of the market moves to blockchain at some point. We are simply building the way

“Currently, the traditional assets market worldwide is US$300 trillion. Our proposition is that 5% of this will move onto the blockchain in the next 10 years. So, the total addressable market is of US$15 trillion despite being as conservative in our projections as possible,” Mittal explains.

“Blockchain really represents a quantum leap in technology and technological shifts follow patterns of slow, then sudden and entire change. This would mean that the higher likelihood is that 100% of the market moves to blockchain at some point. We are simply building the way,” she concludes.

Navanwita Bora Sachdev

Navanwita is the editor of The Tech Panda who also frequently publishes stories in news outlets such as The Indian Express, Entrepreneur India, and The Business Standard