LOS ANGELES, Oct. 01, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via InvestorWire -- Tingo International Holdings (“Tingo”), majority shareholder of Tingo Inc. (OTC: IWBB), a unique agri-fintech company, announces a new partnership with MELD, an open-source, non-custodial liquidity protocol that securely lends and borrows both crypto and fiat currencies. This important partnership between Tingo International Holdings and Meld is designed to deliver a highly efficient DeFi lending and borrowing protocol to customers in Africa.
MELD’s focus is on operating a non-custodial and capital-efficient protocol that offers highly sophisticated financial services for any size of transaction. Tingo and MELD are looking to explore DeFi solutions such as decentralized low interest loans and opportunities to complement Nigeria’s digital currency, the eNaira. The partnership’s primary goal is to invite the $2 trillion-dollar crypto economy to invest in African farmers, and thereby support efforts to increase global food security to meet UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and provide greater opportunity for all.
Tingo and MELD believe it is essential for everyone, not just centralized institutions, governments or the 1%, to gain control of their financial lives and have equal access to financial instruments used by professionals. Tingo and Meld seek to provide financial freedom and bring individualized control to the masses, including the unbanked.
Global climate change is challenging the world’s productivity for sustainable production and, subsequently, food security. Social upliftment is a key area of global interest under the United Nations’ SDGs and Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) impact investing. Tingo’s strategy and market execution provides an opportunity for Africa to be a core focal point to solve several key areas including food security. Tingo aims to deliver, in a tangible and measurable way, alignment and compliance with the UN’s key SDGs – gender equality through upliftment of female entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, poverty alleviation and zero hunger.
Tingo is a leading Africa-focused, agri-fintech company with nearly 10 million subscribers. Tingo believes that a high-efficiency, DeFi protocol like MELD can provide a great deal of value to Tingo customers, even with many transactions below USD$100. These services can offer existing customers more economic and financial flexibility and attract new users to the Tingo ecosystem.
Chris Cleverly, President of Tingo, said, “It is vitally important, as Africa’s largest agri-fintech company directed at providing services for the agricultural community and working to ensure food security across the continent, that we work with technologies such as MELD and CARDANO that are looking to shift the present paradigm in favor of banking for all and inclusive finance. DeFi, stable tokens and NFTs will emancipate Africa as an economic powerhouse – we will work with regulators to ensure this is done safely and securely. Change is inevitable and Nigeria is leading this change.”
About Tingo
Tingo is an agri-fintech company offering a comprehensive platform service using smartphones (using GSM technology) to deliver a marketplace which enables nearly 10 million subscribers, within and outside of the agricultural sector, to manage their commercial activities of growing and selling their products to market participants both domestically and internationally. The ecosystem provides a one-stop-shop solution to enable such subscribers to manage everything from airtime top-ups, bill pay services for utilities and other service providers, access to insurance services, and microfinance to support their value chain from seed to sale.
Tingo aims to be Africa’s leading agri-fintech player that transforms rural farming communities to connect through our proprietary platform to meet their complete needs from inputs, agronomy, off-take and marketplace, delivering sustainable income in an impactful way.
Through our innovative platform Nwassa, Africa’s first digital agriculture ecosystem, Tingo empowers rural businesses to access markets. Farm produce can be shipped from farms across Africa to any part of the world, in both retail and wholesale quantities. Tingo operates Tingo Pay, a mobile payment gateway. It is the intention of Tingo to support a continent-wide SuperApp.
Tingo International holdings is a majority shareholder in Tingo Inc (OTC Markets: IWBB), which owns 100% of Tingo Mobile PLC in Nigeria. The company has recently agreed to acquire Coinfield, a leading European crypto exchange that operates in 198 countries. Tingo intends to launch a gold stable token, along with MELD, to reduce interest rates, volatility, and cross-border costs in Africa. For more information, visit the company’s website at www.TingoGroup.com.
About MELD
MELD is an open-source, non-custodial liquidity protocol for borrowing fiat (USD and EUR) and earning yield on deposits. The MELD token can be staked and is used for voting on the governance of the protocol. MELD offers significant capital efficiency gains in lending and borrowing compared to both centralized blockchain solutions and traditional Fintech. Running on a 3rd generation blockchain, transactions are inexpensive and high-speed while being secured with more than $50 billion in ADA on the Cardano blockchain. MELD is the first decentralized protocol that brings fiat loan capabilities to crypto. Move between crypto and fiat positions with ease, take out loans and retain full control of your digital assets.
The Partnership
Bringing flexible and low-cost DeFi lending and borrowing will unlock a great deal of value to users including earning yield on latent capital, gaining access to fiat while maintaining a crypto position, and sending and receiving funds with very low transaction costs.
The purpose of this partnership is to build value-added financial services across Africa that are safe, easy, and transparent. The MELD application will be integrated into Tingo’s ecosystem for customers and focused on use cases for Africa. Tingo will work with MELD and our mobile OEM to preload our SuperApp on Tingo devices. The collaboration will build a servicing offering that will help Tingo customers gain economic freedom and flexibility in their day-to-day financial transactions.
Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain as they are based on current expectations and assumptions concerning future events or future performance of the company. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are only predictions and speak only as of the date hereof. In evaluating such statements, prospective investors should carefully review various risks and uncertainties identified in this release and matters set in the company's SEC filings. These risks and uncertainties could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements.
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