Manila night market, a mother who supports three children by selling grilled skewers.
She showed me her phone—the $500 her son wired from Dubai, after passing through three banks, only $440 arrived. $60, just like that, disappeared. She smiled and said it was fine, she's used to it.
I didn’t smile. This isn’t a service charge; this is a toll fee.
Plasma made me realize one thing: SWIFT isn’t outdated technology; it’s deliberately complicated. Complexity allows for countless invisible transfer stations, each one taking a cut. Plasma’s route is a straight line—no transfer stations, no correspondent banks, no anxiety waiting three to five business days.
Data doesn’t lie: the global remittance market extracts hundreds of billions of dollars in fees each year, most of it from the poorest people. The World Bank calculated that the average remittance cost in Sub-Saharan Africa is close to 8%. What does 8% mean? It means they have to work an extra half month just to bridge this financial gap.
But the problem has never been the lack of better routes. The problem is that the old route has supported too many people.
Plasma didn’t plan to negotiate with the giants; it directly paved a new road. 0 Gas, sub-second, address to address. No bank account needed, no passport required, not even literacy. With a mobile phone, you can receive the money sent from across the ocean.
You see, the most attractive aspect of technology has never been showmanship.
It’s that mother in Manila, who next time she receives a remittance, won’t have to look at the notification that is $60 short and squeeze out the words “it’s fine.”
