Tunisia has a population of 11 million and is the smallest country in North Africa. The World Bank believes that Tunisia's GDP in 2014 was $48 billion, which is an upper-middle-income country. The World Bank also believes that individuals and businesses in Tunisia have a significant demand for financial services, especially small and micro enterprises, but the financial supply has not been adjusted accordingly to meet the existing demand. Based on relevant research by the World Bank, Tunisia has a great enthusiasm for financial services, but has to resort to informal financial services that are risky and expensive. A 2014 Findex study showed that 16% of adults in Tunisia had borrowed money from family or friends in the past year, while only 8% had borrowed money from formal financial institutions. The study also showed that only 27% of adults in Tunisia had an account at a formal financial institution. A 2015 World Bank and Arab Women’s Training and Research Center study found that two-thirds of adults in Tunisia are excluded from the formal financial sector. The study also found that 81% of the population of Tunisia are interested in financial products such as small savings, but such products are currently unavailable in Tunisia. For basic banking services, Tunisia has 21 commercial banks. In addition, Tunisians can also open an account at the Tunisian National Post Office, which is a popular choice. The Tunis Post is a public industrial and commercial enterprise and the only non-bank financial institution authorized to collect deposits. The company also offers a range of payment methods, but it is not authorized to provide credit. Tunis Post has had current accounts since 1918, while the National Savings Bank was created only in 1956. “The Tunisian Post is a very important and trusted institution, and it is at the heart of financial inclusion in Tunisia. The Tunisian Post is relying on innovative technologies and the digital economy to modernize our services. Digitalization, mobility and the internet are key to this transformation. Monetas and DIGITUS can help us achieve this transformation and integration.” —M. Moez Chakchouk, CEO of Tunisia Post In 2014, the Tunisian Postal Service had 1,051 branches (including offices and mobile branches). The World Bank notes that the postal network is almost as extensive as the entire banking network, but is more evenly distributed across Tunisia. The postal network has characteristics that make it a key component of financial inclusion. Although Findex shows that 90% of Tunisians have bank accounts, they are actually deposited in the post office, and the World Bank also points out that more than 50% of postal accounts are inactive. However, the post office still has a 45% market share of financial accounts, relative to reasonable charges and prices for low-income people. In October this year, the Tunisian Postal Service partnered with Swiss smart contract platform Monetas and Tunisian technology startup DIGITUS. “We are pleased to work with the Tunisian government, the National Post Office and DIGITUS to increase financial inclusion by building an open mobile payments platform that can run on mobile networks. This is an important first step towards a freer and more prosperous world.” ——Johan Gevers, CEO of Monetas The Tunisia Post app, based on the Monetas platform, provides its customers with instant, secure and cheap business payments and remittances across the country. Customers can use eDinar to make mobile remittances, pay for goods and services, pay bills online, and manage government identification documents. "Tunisia Post is an important infrastructure for financial payments and its partnership with DIGITUS will address and enable its customers to enter the new financial ecosystem. After due diligence is completed, the existing 600,000 users of the national digital eCurrency (eDinar) can be initially converted to the new technology." ——Johan Gevers, CEO of Monetas Tunis Post's partnership with Monetas should boost the use of eDinar, but this is one of the challenges facing Tunis Post as highlighted in a case study by the Universal Postal Union (UPU). In its report, the UPU explains that despite Tunis Post's efforts to increase the number of customers using mobile services, such as MobiFlouss and MobiDinar, the number of mobile service users remains limited. Increased use of mobile services will also reduce Tunisia Post's disadvantages relative to banks. The World Bank points out that Tunisia Post has only 178 ATMs, a quarter of its branches are not connected to the central server, relatively limited opening hours and minimum payment amounts, and Tunisia Post does not provide easy-to-use solutions for small savings (ordinary withdrawals and very small deposits) or means of payment. The Monetas eDinar pilot program began in early October, and if successful, Tunisia Post will expand it nationwide, allowing any Tunisian to use the new service. Gevers said: "The Tunis Monetas project will be the first application of a complete ecosystem of digital payments." According to Monetas, its platform will not require any infrastructure upgrades from providers and will provide services at the lowest fees in Tunisia. The maximum fee is set at 1 dinar and general costs will be negligible. “In most cases, the fees are paid by the merchant. With the Monetas system, transaction costs will be no more than 0.9% of the transaction amount or $0.30, whichever is less. This allows people to stay in the digital ecosystem and avoid costly cash withdrawals.” According to Monetas, its platform will not require any infrastructure upgrades from providers and will provide services at the lowest fees in Tunisia. The maximum fee is set at 1 dinar and general costs will be negligible. “In most cases, the fees are paid by the merchant. With the Monetas system, transaction costs will be no more than 0.9% of the transaction amount or $0.30, whichever is less. This allows people to stay in the digital ecosystem and avoid costly cash withdrawals.” In an interview with Techmoran, Gevers pointed out that he chose Tunisia for the purpose of financial inclusion. In a country with a population of 11 million, more than 3 million adults in the country do not have access to basic financial services. And Gevers went on to explain how Tunisians are forced to resort to risky and costly informal financial services, while other African countries also have high rates of people without bank accounts and high mobile usage, but Gevers believes that the timing of the rapid development of the Tunisian project is "just right." An independent report by the GSM Association (GSMA) states that the number of mobile money accounts globally grew to nearly 300 million in 2014, but this represents only 8% of the potential mobile money market. Therefore, the potential growth in the mobile money market is huge. The biggest obstacle to mobile payment business at present is that the larger the number of transactions, the higher the transaction fee. 80% of transactions in Kenya are less than $5. People tend to withdraw money after receiving it through M-PESA. But any cash transaction below $5 is quite expensive. Nearly 3/4 of the population in Kenya has an M-PESA account, but despite this, 99% of transactions are still conducted in cash, which increases transaction friction costs and limits economic growth. “We are working hard to expand into more African and Eastern European countries. By the first half of 2016, we expect to cover half of Africa, connecting 500 million unbanked users to the global economy. 2016 will be the golden year for global digital currencies.” ——Gevers The Monetas platform uses cryptographically secure digital notarization technology that is applicable to all financial and legal affairs, in the public or private sector and around the world. Institutions, individuals and businesses can trade all types of trading instruments, including all national currencies and digital currencies. "Compared to the Bitcoin network, the Monetas platform executes transactions about 1,000 times faster, while transaction costs are about 1 million times smaller, and we have no upper limit on the number of transactions per second." “We simulated trillions of transactions worldwide on a single tower server and the results show that our technology is very effective. By integrating blockchain technology with the Monetas system, they can provide secure storage services for digital assets and secure, fast and cheap large-scale transactions of these assets. In this way, you don’t have to choose between secure storage and an efficient transaction system.” ——JGevers Gevers also noted that there are no plans to enable bitcoin trading on the Monetas platform at this time, “In 2016 we will integrate the Monetas platform with the bitcoin blockchain, thereby adding key functionality to the bitcoin ecosystem.” “Our system is open and works with all types of currencies, instruments, devices, networks, etc. Our initial focus is on traditional currencies, as that is what the vast majority of people still use today. However, we will also be launching commodity currencies (gold, etc.) and cryptocurrencies based on our platform. In fact, Bitcoin integration is coming in 2016.” ——Gevers | 
