Bitcoin Forum

Am a small scale money transfer business, move money between the African diaspora and Africa, eg from cleaners sending a few £'s to their relatives in Ghana or from US to Nigeria.

Am thinking of using BTC's to smooth over the transfer (knocks out transfer fees and banks prying eyes) and possibility improve ultimately profitability by trading in BTC's as well as capitalising on differences and movements in fait currency exchange rates.

Am planning on settling in Hong Kong or Singapore for my daily banking transactions (I believe banks here and regulations are more accommodating).

I am targeting a turnover of hopefully $100,000 daily, BUT my initial trades will only be a fraction of this, like the $300-$1000 to test the market and see if I can upscale.

I am seeking a profit margin of 1percent of thereabouts.

Does anyone have any experience in this area?
What are the best exchanges (or other sources) to use to buy and  sell BTC?
Is it feasible to trade up $100,000 worth of BTC daily?
Is HK and/or Singapore a good place to get good banking?
Is this an idea that can fly?

Any other comments, ideas, suggestions, arguments please please let me hear them?

Am a newbie here, please be gentle.......☺

Ozoro

Hi,

Good luck with your business.
Are you planning to accept bitcoins or the fiat currencies from the person who is originating the remittance ?
If it's fiat (Pound / Dollar), then you will have a exchange rate risk and you will want to minimise the period of time holding the bitcoin.

Bank transfer fees are going to be your main costs.
You must find an exchange with a decent turnover that allows cheap and fast transfers of fiats.
The fee for making a transfer of USD form the exchange might be as high or higher than what it costs to send dollars directly from UK to Africa, so you might have no competetive edge.

Lastly, the exchanges usually don't allow you to make a withdrawal of fiats to somebody else's bank account.
You will need to transfer the money out to your own account and then make the final transfer to the receipent of the remitannce.

Thank you, bitmarket.net

You have really understood my concerns and highlighted relevant areas;

For the most part I will taking fiat currency from customers (dollars/pounds) and converting these to bitcoin.
I will buy/sell bitcoin in the destination countries.
I will buy/sell bitcoin in the originating countries.
Keeping currencies within local countries and their banks should limit bank transfer fees. (am hoping).
I intend to only move money from exchange to my local bank account, and move from my account to clients.

Yes; you've highlighted a main challenge, how to move money (fiat) in and out of exchanges. I guessing Coinbase and Kraken are no, no.....
Am thinking Far East based exchanges maybe better for my purpose, any thoughts or suggestions?

thank you 

There are a few remittance businesses already in force. I think Africa uses the MPesa network and the Philippines uses rebit.ph.

You might want to read the following articles to get a better understanding of the remittances-by-bitcoin space:

https://medium.com/@Cryptonight/bitcoin-doesn-t-make-remittances-cheaper-eb5f437849fe


https://letstalkpayments.com/19-bitcoin-remittance-startups-that-wont-let-the-cryptocurrency-die/


http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/030816/world-will-soon-use-bitcoin-send-money-home.asp

The gist seems to be that moving money is easy but the infrastructure at either end is difficult.

@Alyssa85

thank you for your answer and the links. Interesting reading.

In my model I am more or less happy with first & last mile transactions, my challenge is the buying and selling of the bitcoins. I am thinking I need a robust exchange that will allow me buy and sell BTC regularly as well as  make regular withdrawals and deposits.

Still looking for suggestions.

thanks guys......

ozoro

I suggest taking a look at all of the blockchain companies and picking from there the one(s) that seem relevant to you and take a closer look at their business model; this will give you a lot of good ideas. Here is a list of blockchain companies, but I don't think that it is exhaustive:
https://angel.co/blockchains

Here is one that seems relevant:
https://angel.co/moneytis

You really need two liquid exchanges at both ends. Where are you based? In Europe, the best exchange is Kraken which allows you to deposit in euros. In the USA, Bitfinex is liquid. I don't really know much about the exchanges in Hong Kong or Singapore. I think one of the HongKong exchanges got hacked (gateway). I suppose you could investigate the Chinese exchanges, but I'm not sure they allow withdrawls in fiat outside their country.

Hello guys, thanks for your response;

@qwik2learn, your second link seems similar to my business plan, although in my case the clients/customers need not know about the 'bitcoin' element of the transaction, although if they wish to use bitcoin to transact I will be able to accommodate them.

@Alyassa85, yes you're right; two liquid exchanges, one at either end; am based in Europe. The European and US exchanges tend to have stringent limits on trades and withdrawals, hence am looking towards the Far East.

the disbursement side; ie African exchanges, am not sure they have the volume.

is between 1 to 30 full bitcoin trades a day excessive?

regards

ozoro

There are several bitcoin exchanges in South Africa:

https://www.bitx.co/in/za/en/

https://ice3x.com/

Most of the south african exchanges are linked to Kenya via the Mpesa/BitPesa network and the ice network is linked to Nigeria. (Basically the former British Empire countries are all connected - South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria - but the ones that were outside the Empire are not - so it depends where in Africa you are operating).

I use escrow for remittance and its quite ok sometimes a delay but slightly usually in rush or urgent situations.  I send the btc to escrow with the information on payout so escrow will find ways on how it will be done depending on the country you will be sending the payout. 

Thank you for your responses

@Alyssa85 yes, I have investigated ice3X and BitX I will attempt to trade on them in the first instance

@Bitcoinbee how does Escrow work?

regards

In Europe you can try Cashila https://www.cashila.com/
Cashila has a money remitting license so you can send/receive money from whoever you want.

Great for example companies that send funds to multiple bank accounts or freelancers receiving payments from multiple sources. Can send to Europe accounts only, tho.

@wisecoin

thank you for the info

You can setup this, as long you have a partner you can trust.

But theres no point if there is no prior trust built because they can easily screw you over on the other side and walk away with large amounts of btc.

Youre basically doing a smaller scale of a arbitrage.