The LocalPayments & SafeTransfer web app was designed to simplify and secure the use of PYUSD (PayPal’s stablecoin) for small businesses and regular users. The project aimed to provide merchants with a seamless system and detailed analytics while ensuring customers could make protected purchases with escrow-based security.

Despite the growing adoption of PYUSD, many small businesses and casual users find it challenging to leverage its benefits due to technical complexities, lack of intuitive tools, and concerns about security. Small businesses struggle with integrating crypto payments, while customers fear losing funds to scams or transaction failures.

Interviews were conducted with small business owners, freelance service providers, and regular users who have made or accepted PYUSD payments. Key pain points identified:

Merchants: Complicated setup processes, lack of reporting tools, and fears about transaction failures.

Customers: Concerns about non-delivery, lack of purchase protection, and fraud risks.

The project also involved studying existing payment solutions and identifying their strengths and weaknesses. Competitors like PayPal and Stripe were examined to better understand industry standards for security and ease of use.

Based on the research, two distinct solutions were devised:

LocalPayments: A merchant-focused platform with an easy POS system, detailed analytics, inventory tracking, and automatic tax calculations.

SafeTransfer: A customer-centric solution providing purchase protection through escrow-based payments and fraud detection mechanisms.

The design phase prioritized usability, accessibility, and simplicity. Key design decisions included:

Using clean, minimalist interfaces for ease of navigation.

Providing separate dashboards for merchants and customers to tailor the experience to their needs.

Implementing flipping cards for onboarding to present information engagingly.

Using GCP’s computational resources to optimize transaction verification speed.

The project was built as a web application using React, Tailwind CSS, and GCP for backend computations. The entire system was structured to allow merchants to:

Set up their business profiles seamlessly.

Track sales, orders, and payments with detailed analytics.

Manage notifications and security settings.

Meanwhile, customers could:

Make secure payments with purchase protection.

Track their transaction history and resolve disputes through a simple interface.

Inventory management and automatic tax calculation.

Sales analytics, top customer insights, and notifications.

Secure wallet setup and integration tools.

Purchase protection via escrow payments.

Fraud detection warnings.

Dispute resolution system.

Simple transaction history tracking.

The web app successfully streamlined PYUSD payments for both merchants and customers. Key achievements include:

Faster transaction processing times.

Enhanced security through escrow payments.

Improved user experience with clear dashboards and analytics.

Positive feedback from user testing with merchants and regular users.

The LocalPayments & SafeTransfer web app demonstrated the viability of providing a simplified and secure PYUSD payment experience. Future plans include expanding the platform to support more cryptocurrencies and enhancing reporting capabilities for merchants.