UDeal: Streamlines Rental Processes Using the Blockchain

The French start-up UDeal built a mobile platform for securing second-hand products’ sales and purchases on marketplaces.

Goal: Securing payments and deliveries in face-to-face and remote transactional contexts, using Blockchain technology.
Targets: Marketplaces, banks, advertising services, insurance companies likely to be granted access to data usually unavailable on the market for second-hand sales.
Business model: This service is free for in-person transactions regarding goods of less than €50. The FinTech automatically charges 5% on sales ranging from €50 to €600. Beyond €600, a €29 flat fee applies.
Partners:

How it works
- Sellers and buyers have to visit the UDeal app.
- The seller specifies the product’s description and terms of the sale.
- The item is timestamped using the Blockchain and sent to the buyer.
- The payment is deposited on a Crédit Mutuel Arkéa account.
- When receiving the item, the buyer may agree to, negotiate or reject the contractual terms based on the product’s condition.
- The deposited amount is unlocked and credited to the seller’s account through Mangopay’s payment platform as soon as the deal is done.
- The amount is automatically sent to the seller if no claim on the part of the seller within 3 days.
For now, this solution only allows the users to buy and sell goods in person, but remote sales should soon be added in partnership with Colissimo. Integration would be underway for their APIs and a tracking service for shipments may also be considered.

Assist a fast growing promising market. The market for second-hand sales is changing. According to a study by Xerfi, this sector would have been worth €6 billion in France in 2017. Over the past years, it has been growing twice as fast as household consumption.
This progress in consumerism modes is also of interest to brands and industry players: they try to boost the development of a circular economy.
Some sellers and buyers are still reluctant due to transaction security issues, in dealing with payments and deliveries. UDeal intends to address this issue using a Blockchain o secure and automate processes.
Build partnerships. In order for them to scale up, UDeal announced several partnerships. Discussions would also be underway with a challenger bank and they may feature an insurance offer protecting the users against thefts and breakage throughout the delivery process.

UDeal has been incubated by Le Swave since January 2019 after several months of development in Beta. They unveiled a Blockchain-based timestamping solution for transactions.
This service is currently available for individual customers but should later be extended to address corporate needs.
Several payment solutions have been crafted to secure P2P transactions using escrow accounts (DepoPass, bought out by BPCE, Cocoricar or even ClivréCpayé, for instance). UDeal stands out through relying on a Blockchain to secure the entire process.

Category : Alertes quotidiennes