Universal bitcoin company Satoshi Citadel Industries’ Rebit.ph has partnered with California-based global transaction network and money transfer platform ZipZap to enable Filipino expat workers in Canada to send money back to the Philippines using the ZipZap payment application.
Filipino workers spend around USD$2 billion in transaction and conversion fees when sending money back to their families. The remittance services and outlets such as Western Union and Lhuiller (Filipino Local Remittance Service) can be extremely expensive and inefficient, as it requires 5 percent to 12 percent of the entire transaction to be paid as “service fees.”
Satoshi Citadel Industries and its subsidiary company Rebit.ph aims to break this barrier of the Filipino and Canadian remittance markets to enable Filipino expat workers to send and transfer payments with ease. The company is seeking to get a significant share of the Philippines-to-Canada remittance market and process as many remittance payments as possible using Bitcoin technology.
Speaking to Bitcoin Magazine, Satoshi Citadel Industries CEO John Bailon explained:
“We’re aiming high. We want to capture as much as we can, and although this seems farfetched, I truly believe that with the current existing technologies, i.e. ubiquitous smartphones and the Bitcoin technology, this is now achievable. The timing is right, and with partners like ZipZap, building the open remittance network on top of the blockchain is now a reality. Cost of remittances is a huge pain point (USD 2B huge) for a lot of my fellow countrymen, and that is what ultimately motivates us to bring a faster and cheaper service to market.”
Process
The process of sending remittance or, as the company calls it, a “rebittance,” via rebit.ph is simple. Users can use the ZipZap application which acts as an on-ramp interface for remitters.
Then, the users “are asked how much they want to send in Candadian dollars, plus the corresponding recipient details, and as soon as they hit “send,” the transaction goes through the Bitcoin network.
“In a matter of minutes, we process the transaction at Rebit and cash in PHP is made available for the recipient through whatever payout method the remitter nominated,” Bailon said. “For both remitter and receiver, the bitcoin part is invisible, they don’t have to know how the funds were sent accross the network, what they know is that it’s a more convenient and cheaper way to send money back home.
“Because we use Bitcoin at Rebit, we’re open to receive transactions from any individual or company, effectively an open network for remittances,” explained Bailon.
Possible Expansion
Ultimately, Satoshi Citadel Industries intends to expand its services and “target the top 10 locations where there is significant Filipino migrant worker population,” including UAE, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Today, residents of Australia, Canada, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan and many other Asian countries can transfer and send money using bitcoin to remittance outlets and banks in the Philippines. Through partnerships with local banks and financial institutions, Rebit.ph has made it extremely easy for Filipino expat workers to send payments, and Filipino residents to receive transactions at remittance outlets, which are available across the country.
“By partnering with companies such as ZipZap, we’ve made sending remittances to the Philippines via Bitcoin easy, cheaper and faster compared to traditional methods.. It’s like Western Union, except it’s open to for anyone to participate in. We jokingly call this network the Eastern Union,” added Bailon.
Xapo CEO Wences Casares has been one of Bitcoin’s strongest supporters since 2011, but not many people have heard the story of how he originally got into this new form of digital money.
The Argentinian-born entrepreneur has been able to create one of the most well-capitalized companies in the space, and he was able to mystify the likes of Dick Costolo, Marc Andreessen, Reid Hoffman and other Silicon Valley giants by transferring roughly $250,000 worth of bitcoin between multiple smartphones within a matter of minutes. But what led Casares to Bitcoin in the first place?
Trying to Send Money to Friends in Argentina
Unlike many of the Bitcoin proponents who talk about how the digital money is going to change the world without having their own, personal need for it, Casares came across Bitcoin while attempting to send money to childhood friends in Argentina. The Xapo CEO explained the process of finding out about Bitcoin on a recent episode of EconTalk:
“I first learned about Bitcoin in 2011. I live in California, in Palo Alto, and a group of childhood friends from Argentina were doing a project where we needed to send money to that project. And I couldn’t send money from California to Argentina, so I was looking to see if my sister, who’s there, could give the friends some money and I could pay her later. And one of my friends – who’s not tech savvy or financially savvy – said, ‘Hey, why don’t you use Bitcoin?’”
Giving Bitcoin a Chance
Although Casares admits he was skeptical at first, he decided to give Bitcoin a chance as a new international payment mechanism. He described the entire process of using Bitcoin to send money to his friends in Argentina in his recent EconTalk interview:
“So, I was curious and I looked [it] up online, and, I think on Craigslist, I found someone who was willing to meet with me at the cafe in Palo Alto and gave me some bitcoin and I gave them the cash. Then, I just got the bitcoin on my cell phone and I sent them to my friend in Argentina and the next day he has . . . [Argentine] pesos. And I just couldn’t believe what happened.”
Many bitcoiners remember the first time they used the digital money because it is a strange feeling to have actual value stored on an electronic device as a string of bits.
“I felt like I was witnessing the beginning of the Internet. It was that kind of fascination,” Casares said.
Abra is the Mainstream Version of Casares’s 2011 Experience
Wences Casares’s story has been repeated many more times all over the world since 2011, and there is now an app that captures the essence of that experience in a user-friendly manner. Abra allows users to send digital cash to anyone else in the world, and that digital cash can then be transferred to local currency via a peer-to-peer (P2P) transfer.
Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the app is that it also locks the value of the digital cash to U.S. dollars, which means users don’t need to worry about bitcoin’s price volatility for the duration of the transfer. Abra is powered by smart contracts built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain.
Abra is just now coming to market, but Casares already experienced this new phenomenon four years ago. As time goes by, we will continue to see more apps developed that were first thought of in the early days of IRC chatrooms and bitcointalk.org threads.
Bitcoin startup Bitsoko announced that it soon will begin sponsoring a Blockchain Event Series in Nairobi, Kenya. The events, held monthly at the iHub innovation hub, will focus on Blockchain education and networking, and offer opportunities for local startups to pitch.
The Bitsoko team, which is spread across Africa with a presence in Ghana, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Sierra Leone and Rwanda, uses Bitcoin to revolutionize money transfer and remittance services. The company offers digital currency services ranging from remittance and money transfer services to payment processing for merchants at a fraction of the current rates.
“Daniel Bloch of Bitsoko in Kenya will develop their mobile money platform known as Bitsoko, which integrates Blockchain technology for low-cost transactions mediated by bitcoins,” states the Grand Challenges website. “They have built a mobile wallet and a point-of-sale service for merchants that allows money to be easily and securely transferred around the world using only a Bitsoko username, phone number or bitcoin wallet address. Bitsoko will also offer simplified options for paying household bills and payrolls. They will raise awareness of their platform to scale up the number of users and merchants, and continue to evaluate the security and capability of the platform.”
Titled “Enable Universal Acceptance of Mobile Money Payments,” the grant page notes that people living on under $2 per day need to transact with money just like everyone else, but most poor people, particularly those living in countries where poverty is widespread, have no access to formal financial products or services to help them manage these transactions and their money. That’s the reality that Bitsoko hopes to change.
The Impatient Optimist blog of the Gates Foundation states that the goal of this Grand Challenge is to increase the value of mobile for poor and low-income people by enabling universal acceptance of mobile money among small merchants and service providers.
“The modern financial system does not work for the poor,” notes the foundation. “But there is a different option – a digital financial ecosystem. Digital transactions are efficient and can be very low in cost, but we still have a long way to go until we see the wide-scale adoption of digital payments.”
As a winner, Bitsoko will receive $100,000 in funding, with an opportunity to receive an add-on grant of $1 million if the project is successful. Bitsoko will use the grant to expand its services to Ghana, Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone, further enabling simple low-cost payments.
“The financial structure in Kenya and throughout Africa has changed rapidly since the birth of mobile money by MPesa,” said Bitsoko co-founder and lead developer Allan Juma. “We believe that this will only continue to grow, and tools such as Bitsoko that leverage Blockchain technology to lower transaction costs will be at the forefront of this boom. ”
Paypal announced on Wednesday that it was acquiring San Francisco-based Xoom, a company that facilitates the digital transfer of money internationally, Forbesreports. The all-cash deal values Xoom at $890 million, or $25 a share.
“Expanding into international money transfer and remittances aligns with our strategic vision to democratize the movement and management of money,” said PayPal President Dan Schulman.
“Acquiring Xoom allows PayPal to offer a broader range of services to our global customer base, increase customer engagement and enter an important and growing adjacent marketplace,” he said. “Xoom’s presence in 37 countries – in particular, Mexico, India, the Philippines, China and Brazil – will help us accelerate our expansion in these important markets.”
Xoom is a digital money transfer provider that enables consumers to send money and pay bills for family and friends around the world in a secure, fast, and cost-effective way, using a mobile phone, tablet or computer. Founded in 2001 by PayPal investor Kevin Hartz and serial entrepreneur Alan Braverman, the company went public in 2013.
“Becoming part of PayPal represents an exciting new chapter for Xoom, which will help accelerate our time-to-market in unserved geographies and expand the ways we can innovate for customers,” said Xoom President and CEO John Kunze. “Being part of a larger, global organization will help us deliver the best possible experience to our customers, while maximizing value for our shareholders.”
“I’m excited to announce that PayPal is ready to make another area of payments better for people around the world – international remittances,” added Schulman in another post. “Today, this primarily cash-based system of sending money abroad can be time-consuming, insecure and expensive. We believe [the Xoom] acquisition will allow PayPal to quickly expand into the large and growing global money transfer market.Xoom has what we believe is the most advanced technology platform in this space with a majority of its transactions taking place on mobile devices.”
The announcement of the acquisition comes only a few weeks before PayPal’s planned split with eBay. The separation will allow the two companies to more effectively pursue distinct operating priorities and strategies and opportunities for long-term growth and profitability. In particular, PayPal’s management will be able to focus exclusively on its payments business, and enjoy “increased flexibility to pursue new partnership and strategic opportunities that may have previously been unavailable for strategic or other reasons.”
It’s interesting to speculate about how the Xoom acquisition might influence PayPal’s improving but still uncertain attitude toward Bitcoin, and worth noting that Xoom seems at least open to the digital crypto-currency. “If bitcoin could help us be more efficient, we’d use it,” said Kunze in a 2014 interview with PYMNTS titled “Is Bitcoin The Future of Money Transfer?”
“I think anyone that wants to move money from point A to point B has to deal with two very important challenges that, for bitcoin to succeed, players in that ecosystem must also solve in addition to still being efficient and not costly,” he added. The two challenges are, according to him, defending against money-laundering threats, and not moving money that was sourced from or used for illegal purposes. “Unless the bitcoin ecosystem self-regulates and gets consumer protection in place, and deals proactively with money-laundering risks, the regulators will start regulating them,” he said.
BitInka, a bitcoin platform that operates in Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia and Brazil will soon expand its services throughout Argentina, Colombia and Chile, to become South America’s first universal bitcoin platform targeted for the unbanked.
Founded in 2013 by Roger Gabriel, BitINKA is one of the only companies in South America which implemented bitcoin trading to create a bitcoin exchange that allows its users to convert/withdraw bitcoin for many local currencies of South America, including the Peruvian Nueva Sol and the Argentinian peso.
Through its international and instant bitcoin exchange platform, the bitcoin startup aims to penetrate mainstream bitcoin adoption by implementing bitcoin in day-to-day finances and to provide a platform for users without any prior knowledge about the currency.
Since 2013, BitINKA has partnered with local banks, financial institutions and local collection agencies including Banco de Crédito del Perú and Banco de Crédito de Bolivia to enable a fast and easy withdrawal processes for its users. For some regions, BitINKA’s bitcoin exchange and wallet platform will be the first bitcoin-related application to be introduced.
Targeting Mainstream Bitcoin Adoption and the Unbanked
According to the BitINKA team, the biggest market of South America is based on day-to-day expenses, which includes e-commerce, convenience stores, taxis, kiosks (small stores), etc. However, credit card penetration is substantially low in South American countries and thus, is often not used apart from e-commerce platforms. Furthermore, banks and financial institutions require a long list of documents and qualifications for bank accounts, and credit cards including two government approved licenses, tax income of at least two years, and financial statements from at least two different financial institutions.
Pierna Caballero, the co-administrator of BitINKA told Bitcoin Magazine “In some countries where Bitinka operates, people are educating themselves recently to use Bitcoin and they are realizing that is something very easy and also is a currency that people themselves control. In Peru for example this is something new and gradually has captured the public interest, in Bolivia it is prohibited Bitcoin as a payment method, so Bitinka works as a virtual wallet for businesses and users affiliates.”
Bitcoin is widely used in countries like Argentina, where well-established bitcoin payment processing startups and exchanges like BitPagos are based in. BitPagos is one of the most prominent bitcoin merchant payment platform which raised over US$600,000 in a funding round participated by Tim Draper and Barry Silbert. The startup is already close to processing US$1 million per month.
However, bitcoin is still unfamiliar to a large number of people in the continent. BitINKA aims to help those unfamiliar with the benefits of the digital currency to easily accept, trade and receive payments using bitcoin.
Caballero explained, “Brazil is a country that already use Bitcoin in different ways, as an investment, savings, etc. in Peru just a few people know Bitcoin, Peru is a country where new things are more difficult to be accepted so what we are doing with Bitinka is helping Bitcoin to incorporate in people’s lives.”
The Singularity University is an educational center dedicated to high-impact, world-changing applications of disruptive, exponentially accelerating technologies. Exponential Finance 2015 examined how rapidly accelerating technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, crowdfunding, digital currencies, and robotics are rapidly disrupting businesses throughout the financial industry.
The Singularity University’s news portal Singularity Hub published a conference wrap-up titled “Exponential Finance: Who Will Be the Instagram or Uber of Finance?” Instagram and Uber are examples of what Peter Diamandis, co-founder and executive chairman of Singularity University, calls the disruptive potential of digital technology.
“Instagram was acquired for a billion dollars the same year Kodak went bankrupt,” writes Jason Dorrier. “Uber is a five-year-old transportation company worth $40 billion, and they don’t own a single car or bus.”
According to Diamandis, the blockchain will spark similarly disruptive innovations.
“At its core, bitcoin is a smart currency, designed by very forward-thinking engineers,” said Diamandis. “It eliminates the need for banks, gets rid of credit card fees, currency exchange fees, money transfer fees, and reduces the need for lawyers in transitions … all good things. Most importantly, it is an ‘exponential currency’ that will change the way we think about money.”
In his talk at Exponential Finance, Diamandis added that simple and ubiquitous apps based on blockchain technology will change the banking industry and the insurance industry.
It’s difficult to predict which companies will become the Instagram and Uber of exponential digital finance. Some of the established big players in the financial industry will probably continue to play an important role.
Using again the analogy with digital photography, while Kodak went bankrupt because it didn’t adapt fast enough, Canon transitioned to become a major player in the digital camera market. But the biggest and most disruptive innovations could come from applications and business models that few anticipate today, CNBC’s Bob Pisani pointed out.
Just a few imagined the iPhone in the ’60s, “Reality has surpassed science fiction,” said Pisani.
Abra, a blockchain company that wants to take a slice of the $550 billion global remittance market, is showing what can happen when several digital technologies converge in one product. Combining an Uber-like peer-to-peer network with smartphone technology and the blockchain, Abra permits sending cash as easy as sending a text message.
At Exponential Finance, Abra’s founder Bill Barhydt estimated that we’re three years away from modern smartphones becoming ubiquitous in the developing world. At that point, it’s possible many of the world’s unbanked billions in developing countries will skip traditional finance, a little like how they leapfrogged landlines for cell phones.
Barhydt stated that Abra aims to be the Uber of digital cash. Abra, which allows people to send and receive money without a bank account, is building a global network of “human ATM machines,” empowered end-users who don’t even have to understand Bitcoin to use the underlying blockchain technology embedded in the Abra app.
Barhydt described Abra as “the world’s first digital cash-based peer-to-peer mobile money transfer network.” The Abra app allows anyone with a smartphone to send money to any other smartphone anywhere on the planet any time of day. The goal of Abra is to be as “private as traditional cash, but without introducing any financial intermediary.”
“Traditional banking is really good at serving the global 5 percent to 10 percent of consumers who reach a certain income level,” Barhydt told CNN Money. “The reality is, the majority of the planet is a cash-based economy, and banking doesn’t work for those people.”
CNN Money’s take is that Abra makes banking more accessible while completely cutting out the actual bank – and bank accounts may be the next thing to go obsolete.
Blythe Masters, the former J.P. Morgan star who now leads Digital Asset Holdings, a technology company that uses distributed digital ledgers to address operational challenges and settlement latency in both digital and mainstream financial assets, said that financial blockchain applications will be measured in the trillions.
Augur, a fully-decentralized, open-source prediction market platform based on blockchain technology intended to revolutionize forecasting, decision-making and the manner in which information consensus is collected and aggregated, was selected as one of the five finalists in the “Breakthrough” category at the XCS Challenge at Exponential Finance 2015.
A short video on the conference website shows the enthusiastic reactions of many attendees after the conference.
“I feel we’re on the cusp of a step function in technology,” says Catheryne Nicholson, founder and CEO of blockchain API provider BlockCypher.
A new consumer remittance startup is on the block, and it’s bringing bitcoin to new corridors in Europe, China and Mexico.
Freshly out of private beta, Moneytis has now opened its beta to the public. The service allows users to send international transfers from their bank accounts to the receiver’s for a fee of two percent or less. The startup uses bitcoin to send the money to its destination, but users would never know because Moneytis keeps it all in the background.
Users first create an account by filling in basic info and bank account credentials. Next, they select the amount and the type in the email address of the recipient. The money is then deducted from the sender’s account and sent to the person receiving the money. In order to access the money, the receiver has to create his or her own Moneytis account. The startup also claims to use an algorithm to test its fee against other providers, and if a cheaper deal is found, Moneytis will redirect to the competitor’s website.
A Bitcoin Backbone
According to Moneytis co-founder, Etienne Tatur, the idea behind Moneytis came to him after having a difficult time sending money to a friend in China. According to Tatur, they had hard time finding out if his bank would do the transfer and then how much it would cost. After figuring it all out and sending the transfer, they were hit by a sudden change in the foreign exchange rate, adding a huge unseen cost.
When the time came to send his money again, the two decided they would use bitcoin, which for them turned out to be more complex, but cheaper. The bitcoin transfer was enough to inspire them to found Moneytis in early 2014 and make a bitcoin-based solutions without the user-experience issues.
Since then, Tatur and his co-founder Christophe Lassuyt have been developing the company’s money-transfer technology and refining its user experience from feedback gathered from the private beta.
“We are thrilled to release publicly our online solution and to see the feedback of our first users,” said Tatur, Moneytis CTO. “Some of them already used the solution to send money to their family and to pay education fees.”
Niche Market
If you added up all the remittance corridors the startup is operational in, it would come to a sum of tens of billions of dollars, according to 2012 data gathered by the World Bank. But the actual potential remittance market for Moneytis is much smaller.
First, it is a pure digital remittance provider, which is a very small section of the market. Estimates vary, but Ismail Ahmed, CEO of digital remittance provider WorldRemit, said digital represented only of 5 percent of total remittance volume. Second, it currently provides only bank-to-bank transfers, which is probably more limiting as it alienates a large amount of remitters who send and receive cash via physical stores and the online remitters who favor quickness.
All things considered, if Moneytis was a remittance provider where the user actually needed to use bitcoin it would be in a much more niche market.
But it’s a start, and already, in terms of number of corridors, Moneytis is among the head of the pack when it comes to bitcoin remittances. In order to grow, the startup is planning to expand beyond bank-to-bank transfers and add more payment options in the future.
With the current onslaught of bitcoin-related applications and services it’s an interesting time to be a part of the greater digital currency community. The blockchain possesses a seemingly infinite number of use cases, and those who can think creatively and be the first movers in a certain sector are pioneering some of the those brilliant ideas into our everyday lives.
The creation of many of these apps allow for the seamless and frictionless transference of value in a myriad of ways. GoAbra, founded by its CEO Bill Barhydt, is currently preparing to disrupt the status quo and bring the future of cash to anyone with a mobile device. Bitcoin Magazine recently spoke with Barhydt on his personal history, and gained some intel on the vision of his company’s mobile payment/remittance service, Abra.
Barhydt is a veteran in the payments technology/mobile industry, and has been working in the field for more than 20 years, going back to his days at Netscape directing business development; working on projects throughout the years in e-commerce, and mobile wallets almost 10 years ago. Barhydt has historically been ahead of his time, and spoke a bit about the company:
“I got the idea for Abra quite a long time ago. The holy grail is to be able to store cash on a smartphone and take it anywhere. I always knew what I had to do in a hyper-connected world. But there were a lot of underlying issues: handset compatibility, cost of bandwidth in developing markets, cost issues. I had an ‘aha’ moment where I realized all the tools were finally available for a global network. This was the impetus.”
The tools are all here. But the Bitcoin blockchain is the one essential piece of the puzzle that is finally enabling a service such as Abra to finally exist.
We asked Barhydt what his initial reaction was when learning about bitcoin and the Bitcoin white-paper:
“I was one of the first people to read the white-paper. I’ve been on these mailing lists since back in my ’90s long-hair days. I had been tracking it and staying current. When I saw the link, initially the title grabbed me, and I had done enough work to know anything mentioning ‘decentralized’ is a big deal. People just thought ‘Bill’s off on another one of this tangents.’ I had printed it out and I poured over it late into the night. I knew it was a total game-changer.”
Finally having these tools in place, Barhydt knew what he had to do. But what ultimately lead him to come up with the idea for “Abra” and what does he think of the other emerging remittance platforms in the bitcoin industry?
“Don’t look at ‘Abra’ like it’s a remittance platform. Remittance is just a use case. Remittance is more a man-in-the-middle transfer solution. It’s a notable business, yes, but with Abra we’re turning phones into banks. And, because you store from your phone, you can do P2P transfer with anyone without a intermediary.”
This is a great example of how Abra is differentiating itself from the competition that simply wants to aid in the transfer of funds digitally. Barhydt went on to discuss a few more points”
“Once you have a P2P (Peer-to-Peer) model it’s no longer remittance, it’s a P2P transfer banking solution. Eliminating intermediaries makes for a cheaper, more secure androbust system with less middlemen. One of the goals of Abra is make the best money transfer and payment solution in the world, replacing them with a P2P model for moving money around. At some point Abra is going to have the ability to make payments as well. Banks are not at risk from us; we don’t do credit, service loans, not a notary, etc. Our plan is to more so replace cash than banks. PESA in Kenya is a good example of this. The first generation of consumer Bitcoin apps will replace cash-based systems. “
Something such as Abra that seeks to use the blockchain to provide more freedom back to the people from a financial standpoint is seen as a positive and is reminiscent of a recent post on Fortune. Using blockchain technology allows for a more distributed financial system that lends power back to the people who need it the most.
The blockchain is great for building next-generation financial applications. But what else is Abra’s system going to do to maintain its major differentiation? Barhydt shared what success looks like in the short term for Abra.
“I want to see Abra Tellers live in dozens of countries in the next year with millions of consumers transacting with each other.”
Abra “Tellers” are a pivotal part of Abra’s magic in making money transfer more seamless. The tellers allow for you to add cash, or withdraw from your Abra app by finding the nearest trusted Abra teller and exchanging cash. You can also deposit cash into your account via a debit card.
Barhydt seems assured his short-term goal is achievable. But the long-term goals of an innovational organization such as Abra should always be considered.
“We gotta sell it [Abra] to consumers first. An incredible number of technical challenges still await while we continue building Abra. Smart contracts, user experience, building out our trusted-teller networks, actively engaging with regulators to explain how Abra works to gain more approval; it’s a never-ending process.
“Tellers are realizing they can make money. There are many pre-registers in multiple countries already. And, there’s no current marketing or PR right now. Abra Tellers can make more money with the same cash they have. Faster is the incentive here. We’re creating a positive feedback loop of making money over time. People are getting that, slowly. Time will tell. There exists a chicken and an egg problem we have to solve.”
What everyone else in the Bitcoin community will care most about is the execution during the launch of this platform. We all love new features, however. So, we asked if there is anything in the pipeline we can look forward to as they continue to spread to other locations with their new innovative service.
“Payment APIs have been the number one request. ‘When can online merchants and etc. use Abra as a payment vehicle?‘ is a question we get often. We’ll be releasing that in the next few months. There are a bunch of other goodies, too, that we’re not quite ready to announce yet as well.”
Abra is revolutionary: no transfer fees, a secure and private system that is instant and convenient, no foreign exchanges risks or bank account required.
We also asked Barhydt what other initiatives in the Bitcoin space he’s most excited about.
“Exchanges are good, they create the ecosystem. I also read about a company called Streamium, I’m very impressed with them and excited for that use case. There aren’t enough startups solving consumer problems and negative affairs. We designed Abra to rid the consumer of pain. Using bitcoin came second. Nothing was better than using bitcoin.”
A blend of Streamium’s real-time streaming service and Abra’s upcoming payment API would be a positive move for the bitcoin industry. It makes for a sensible combination of complimentary services. Both are great examples of platforms using blockchain technology to empower people.
At the end at the end of our extended discussion, Barhydt shared this food for thought about Abra:
“As a company, we believe in the rights of the consumer and taking a part in commerce with their money. At Abra, we believe the right to the consumer comes before the government. We believe there are bad people out there who will do bad things, and government plays the role of being that intermediary; but that should not be at the expense of human rights. We’re staunch proponents of consumers rights, and we’re engaging with governments and regulators and understanding their perspectives and insights to reduce surprises. Regulators have not been a real issue thus far, with exceptions of that Ripple nonsense. Things are early. We think gaining mindshare and being transparent will eliminate the possibility of pushback.”
This author, personally, is very excited for the future of digital cash.
Bitcoin remittance startup BitSpark, alongside four other fintech startups, won the Innotribe 2015 Singapore Semi-Finals held Thursday at the Red Dot Design Museum. The event was organized through a partnership with NextBank Asia and sponsored by international bank Wells Fargo and European startup accelerator Level39.
BitSpark will now progress to the finals, which will be held in October at Singapore Sibos, where it will have the opportunity to win $50,000 and as well as support from the international payment network SWIFT.
Other winners of the Singaporean competition were social consumer credit rating startup Trustingsocial, automated risk management platform provider Jewel Paymentech, online payment processor Codapay, and mobile payments solution provider goSwift. Each of the 15 startups that participated in the event had to pitch the company to a panel of judges, which was composed of financial technology experts and entrepreneurs from the Asia-Pacific region.
BitSpark will be competing against 20 other fintech startups in the finals. Besides the Asian competition winners, finalists from Innotribe competitions held in North America, Africa and Europe will also be competing. The North American showcase has yet to held, and so far only one other digital currency startup progressed to finals. Elliptic, a secure storage service for a variety of assets using the blockchain, won the European showcase in April.
Connecting offline remittances
BitSpark secured a spot in the finals with a new service they announced during the competition. BitSpark CEO George Harrap told Bitcoin Magazine the new service is a way for offline remittance agents to offer online remittances through the startup’s Bitcoin international technology.
“With Bitspark, traditionally offline small business remittance shops (who can service the unbanked) are brought online, and online remittance services (who cannot access the unbanked/unconnected) are now able to connect with unbanked customers,” said Harrap.
The new service aims to solve of one of Bitcoin remittances’ biggest hurdles: digital. The vast majority of senders and receivers are still offline, cash-loving and might not have the best access to the Internet.
Online is still tiny part of global remittances, around 10 to 15 percent, though that is changing. BitSpark will continue to follow the company’s philosophy of “bitcoin in the background,” or cash-in and cash-out, so consumers don’t need to bother handling the digital currency.
BitSpark already operates its online Bitcoin remittance service in a several parts of Asia, including mainland China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Hong Kong. The startup uses only Bitcoin as payment rails, and users send and receive fiat. It has previously explored ways to cater to offline remitters with pre-paid cards in the Philippines and a physical point-of-presence in Hong Kong.
Developing an agent network
BitSpark will try to entice remittance agents to join the startup’s service by offering a subscription-fee model instead of the commission model offered by Western Union, MoneyGram and others. Attracting agents and building a large agent network is crucial for the success of the service.
Instead of giving a cut of each transaction to BitSpark, agents within their network will pay a yet-to-be-defined monthly fee to be part of the service. According to Harrap, the pricing model will put much more cash in the pockets of agents compared to existing remittance companies.
The Bitcoin startup said it already has a number of operators signed up, but whether the different fee model will be compelling enough to incentivize the number of agents it needs to join is a big if. Established offline remittance services offer a trusted brand and large customer base, both of which are huge for getting volume and subsequent agent earnings. Though it varies from country to country, in many places agents make between 30 percent to 45 percent.
That percentage might seem small, but even with a large cut going to remittance companies such as Western Union, agents are likely making a good living from the large volume provided by such brands.
BitSpark did not elaborate in detail about the new service but said more information would be available closer its launch in July.
An annual international remittance conference will hold a day dedicated to the blockchain and teach attendees about the technology that could potentially disrupt their industry. The International Money Transfer Conference (IMTC) will hold the Blockchain and Remittance Day during their event in Istanbul on May 25th.
The one-day event will be part of a larger conference about remittances in the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Attendees range from executives of large remittance companies to industry analysts to founders of money transfer startups. The special blockchain event is meant to introduce a “range of practical subjects” about new money transfer systems built on top of Ripple and Bitcoin that could be used for remittances.
Much talk has surrounded the enormous potential of blockchain protocols as money transfer and remittances tools even though there were no concrete examples to show, the conference’s website notes. “That has changed in 2015. Companies are being built and will sooner or later become a vital part of new international money transfer systems that can include the traditional remittance companies if they learn, adapt, innovate partner and evolve.”
‘Rebittances’
The conference will feature several Bitcoin speakers, including venture capitalist Eddy Travia, BitOasis co-founder Ola Doudin and YellowPay co-founder David El Achkar. Bitcoin entrepreneur Aaron Koenig will also have a screening of his movie, “Satoshi’s Last Will” and discuss his book, “Bitcoin: Money Without Government.”
IMTC attendees will also be able to pay their fees in bitcoin.
According to the event’s program coordinator Hugo Cuevas-Mohr, the purpose of the event is to educate the attendees about how the blockchain could massively change remittances, a disruption Cuevas-Mohr thinks is not far off.
“The blockchain technology behind bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can be a secure & cost-efficient digital money system that will undoubtedly bring a number of changes to the way we transfer value internationally,” reads the event’s webpage. “Rebittance Companies are moving remittance in a number of corridors. The Ripple Network has already being implemented by Banks & Forex companies in different geographies, and even Western Union is looking at it.
“All these innovations will become a reality in a not-so-distant future,” the website says. “Regulation is slowly making the ecosystem more dependable and safer. Compliance and KYC will be even easier than is today. That is why we at IMTC think that it is important to learn, to listen, to analyze and to create partnerships between the old and the new to find better ways to move forward as an industry. That’s why we developed MTBIT.”
The event is open only to a select group of people, and attendees must be invited.
