Inspiration
We were inspired by the need for alternatives to the long and costly process of getting bank loans today. Over 30 million Americans visit pawn shops every year, but are often offered much lower prices than they could be because pawn shop owners are often not able to sell their items to the best buyer. Pawnhub connects people looking for low interest rate loans with people interested in alternative investments in an exciting and lucrative new financial area.
What it does
Pawnhub lets people easily get loans at lower rates than the current alternatives by pawning their physical items to others on the platform. Instead of paying high rates for payday loans or other financial industry alternatives, users can quickly get access to cash at the low rates that come with a collateral backed loan. We also allow people with money to spare to invest that in a new and innovative way, earning higher interest rates than they could get from other investment options. Pawnhub connects these two groups by being the third-party escrow that borrowers send their items to
How we built it
We built Pawnhub using PHP, Javascript, and Swift for our iOS application. The website is fully responsive and accessible from almost any device.
Challenges we ran into
Coming into the hackathon, most of our team had little experience in programming, particularly with web and mobile applications. We also had trouble coming up with ideas in the fintech space. Because fintech tends to be highly dependent on regulation, it was a challenge to come up with a hack that was feasible given the financial regulatory environment. We went through a number of ideas before we arrived on PawnHub.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of everything that we've learned and the way that we took an idea and turned it into something that can improve people's lives.
What we learned
We all greatly improved our web development skills, particularly with regards to marketplaces and apps where users interact with each other.
What's next for Pawnhub
Partnering with appraisers and other experts on common items that are pawned such as jewellery, watches, and electronics. We would also like to partner with a fulfillment and storage company that could store the collateral items for us while the loans are in progress and be able to quickly send them back to our users once the loans are paid.
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