The international ride sharing giant, Uber has remained undecided about the implementation of Bitcoin payments for a while now. There were few attempts by third party developers in the past where they tried to support Bitcoin payments on Uber application, but without much success.
In a recent incident, Uber has come to realize the disadvantage of increased reliance on traditional financial institutions for collection and disbursement of funds. According to a report on one of the leading English daily, hundreds of Uber drivers in Scotland and other cities surrounding London were left without cash after the bank failed to execute weekly fund transfers to their accounts. The incident, much to the inconvenience of the drivers has got them waiting till Monday before they can even fill their fuel tanks.
While it is not clear who is really at fault here, Uber spokesperson has shifted the blame on a banking glitch which led to the delay of payments. Uber claims that it has already contacted the bank to reinitiate the payments to those affected accounts. Some believe that they may have to wait till mid-week before they can see the money owed to them by Uber.
As the ride-sharing company tries to maintain more control over its drivers by being the custodian of fares paid over the application, the whole mess could have been easily avoided by including a cryptocurrency option. This way, even if a small percentage of users pay with Bitcoin directly to the driver’s wallet, they will be in a position to sustain in case of delays in payment from the company.
Uber is currently facing legal issues in the United Kingdom after a group of drivers initiated legal action for being wrongly classified as being self-employed. As the company sorts out its legal issues, hope it learns something from the recent banking issue and includes an additional payment option on its application for the benefit of millions of cryptocurrency users across the world.
Ref: The Guardian
