Back in November, Hong Kong based Cryptocurrency Exchange Bitspark Limited unveiled the first ever end-to-end Bitcoin remittance solution: A much needed service that would allow Hong Kong’s population to gain easy access to the advantages bitcoin offers when compared to conventional remittance services to transfer money to the Philippines. They’re now extending their services from the Philippines to also serve Indonesia.
The numbers behind the demand
According to the Hong Kong Government’s website, more than 165,000 Indonesians and about 169,000 from the Philippines were residing in Hong Kong as of 2012. Large percentages of both are in fact foreign domestic helpers. It was estimated that $5 Billion was sent to Indonesia from migrant workers in 2010 around the world. Indonesian foreign workers in Hong Kong made up nearly 1% of that. There clearly was a large demand for a better remittance service in Hong Kong. Now, thanks to Bitspark those people now have access to a convenient, inexpensive remittance service, without necessarily having any knowledge over how cryptocurrencies work.
Bitcoin’s potential for disruption in the remittance industry
This is a great example of how bitcoin is indeed a great way to transfer money worldwide. Bitspark managed to bring together a service that is highly competitive to its alternatives and also incredibly easy to use. Costumers won’t even have to touch bitcoin since all trades and transfers are handled by Bitspark and their partners. Still, they’ll be able to receive their money same day! All for just a flat fee worth 3.22 USD.
In their own words:
Remittances and Bitcoin go hand-in-hand due to the intrinsic characteristics which the king pin cryptocurrency brings. Bitcoin provides instant transactions, has no fees and can be sent from anywhere in the world.
And when asked about how bitcoin’s price is affecting their business, Bitspark’s co-founder said:
For our remittance service we don’t care if the price is $1 or $1m. Bitcoin is the means of transmission. We’re getting the message across that bitcoin has real-world applications besides speculation.
The message has been through, remittance services taking advantage of bitcoin’s innovation are not only feasible but might even make conventional remittance a thing of the past. We’ll only have to wait and see if what bitcoin has to offer is utilized by service providers, we could be seeing this industry changing shape really soon.
Images from Reddit.