In Mexico, the country of colorful skulls and Santa Muerte, an app offers its users to send posthumous messages and record their last wishes to safeguard their “emotional legacy” and patrimony.
“Mexico laughs about death, but finds it hard to talk about it,” explains Miguel Farrell, CEO of the company that created Past Post.
This application “allows you to leave your affairs in order for that moment that will come when you least expect it”, says the businessman.
A study by the company indicates that 94% of Mexicans do not make a will, 98% do not have a funeral plan and 62% do not know what assets their partners have.
The tool, “100% Mexican” and with a base cost of 19 dollars a year, is part of the “after life” solutions niche, focused on estate planning or testamentary and posthumous communication, a novelty in Mexico but present for more than a decade in countries such as the United States.
“We avoid using the word death so that the connotation is not negative,” says Farrel.
Initially, the aim is for users to take advantage of the so-called “message section” where, for example, a terminally ill father records a congratulatory message for his daughter’s graduation, scheduled for years later, as shown in a promotional video.
The technology used by Past Post safeguards the video as a non-fungible certificate (NFT), impossible to copy or alter. The message can be sent on a date defined by the user or by a “trusted person” designated by the user to manage his or her legacy.
This same function, which also includes audio and text, can be used to make lists of assets or wishes, medical or funeral care preferences, instructions about dependents or pets, or to manage accounts, whether banking or social networking.
NFTs, hosted on blockchain, currently include everything from clinical records to supply chain assets or so-called “legaltech,” i.e., the use of software to provide legal services, the company says.
Although the result is practically a digital will, Farrell clarifies that Past Post cannot replace such a document, as Mexican laws still require it to be recorded on paper and notarized.
The document created with the application “has no legal value, but it has a very important symbolic value,” he says.
