BuckBuddy

Inspiration

Have you ever visited a restaurant or store that only accepts cash? Have you used those old ATMs that charge $3 transaction fees? BuckBuddy is a mobile app that solves this.

With the immense rise in cashless payments through credit cards, debit cards, or mobile wallets, people are steadily leaving the cash in the bank. However according to the Bank of Canada, 51% of transactions in Canada are still done in cash.

When a business does not have the technology to accept these types of payment methods, customers are forced to pay in cash and are often inconvenienced. The consumer can choose to either:

Find an ATM which may require travelling far distances and paying heavy fees
Forfeit the transaction

Neither of these options are attractive to customers nor businesses.

What it does

People seeking cash open up BuckBuddy and request for cash. In parallel, people with extra cash have setup their BuckBuddy account with those cash amounts, and are available if others request cash. Upon request, BuckBuddy matches up someone seeking cash with someone willing to give cash. When they meet, BuckBuddy performs an Interac eTransfer and the cash is handed over.

How We built it

We built this app using Android studio, integrating google Maps API to pinpoint two locations, using Firebase to store data, and integrating Interac e-transfer API.