Secco

The financial services industry has endured a decade of increased regulatory scrutiny, disruption from challenger banks and new opportunities arising from fintech startups, all of which has revolutionized the financial services space. While this sector is focused on optimizing banking, it is based on the assumption that our existing understanding of banks, money and wealth is correct.

Enter Secco: the organization that believes differently and has the ambitious mission to not only reinvent banking, but to completely turn currency on its head.

Secco is re-imagining the world of money and commerce. They challenge the very premise of banking and the notion of currency. They believe it is about using social networks to improve commerce.

Aura is Secco’s first product. It brings the age-old concept of bartering into the digital era. Aura creates a proximity-based social network for people to exchange digital tokens that replace money in real-world transactions. In doing so, it hopes to reinvent commerce as we know it and create a social network based on digital peer-to-peer currency.

Secco partnered with ThoughtWorks to create the first prototype for experimentation in the finance and commerce industries.

Over a twelve-week period, ThoughtWorks worked closely with the Secco team to visualize Aura and create a minimum viable product (MVP) that users could interact with, allowing the team to test several ideas and concept designs.

The most interesting aspect was to create a tangible product and create the first pragmatic feedback cycle with the end users. After validation, the next step was testing the viability of the foundational technology including Mesh Networks, P2P, Blockchain and cryptocurrencies with this venture.

ThoughtWorks applied concepts of hypothesis-driven product design to validate assumptions around customer behaviors, lean product discovery and rapid software development methodologies to create an MVP: the product's first inception.

At the end of the twelve-week cycle we had built a strong product based on customer insight, paving the the way forward for Secco.

60 second interview with Chris Gledhill, Founder Secco Aura

Chris, how would you describe Secco’s ambitious mission?

Chris Gledhill: “They say money makes the world go round. So by changing the money you change the world! That is our mission at Secco. We want to create a world where wealth is the contents of one's character, not the size of their wallet. ThoughtWorks could see the potential social impact of our vision but also understood the need to start small. With ThoughtWorks, we were able to refine our broad vision down to a minimum viable product.”

How was working with ThoughtWorks?

Chris Gledhill: “ThoughtWorks are expert agile practitioners and truly walk the talk in their lean ways of working. ThoughtWorkers are open minded and care about positive social impact and social justice. They have a broad cross-industry network to tap into. We really enjoyed the journey we took together.”

What’s next for Secco Aura now?

Chris Gledhill: “Thanks to ThoughtWorks we have been able to prove the tech and the customer appetite for it. We've now lined up some partners for a public beta pilot and are actively raising funds to take Secco to scale.“