Bitcoin Adoption Could Save India $7 Billion

[avatar_kiyoshi]

India is the world’s largest receiver of remittances. Besides making it faster and easier, Bitcoin could help India save up to $7 billion in fees paid to international remittance companies and add this amount to the country's wealth.

According to India’s Economic Times, foreigners living in Gulf countries, most of which are Indians, sent about US$100 billion in remittances. A lot of these Gulf-based Indians are working as blue collar workers and have families that are dependant on them back home.

ZebPay Co-founder and COO, Sandeep Goenka says, “India is the world's biggest remittance market at more than $70 billion.”

He points out that the majority of the remittance is small amounts of around $200. For small amounts especially, users end up paying up to 15% in fees to companies like PayPal, Western Union or to banks through transfer and exchange rate fees. Bitcoin makes it extremely easy to send a small remittance back home.

Besides making it faster and easier, it could help save India up to $7 billion in fees paid to international remittance companies and add this amount to  country's wealth.

ZebPay’s focus is on creating bitcoin infrastructure and a reliable bitcoin exchange in India and they have a partnership with BitWage. They also offer services which allow their users to buy Amazon India and Flipkart shopping coupons. ZebPay also offers a mobile phone top up service for prepaid cellular phones in India.

Full read: http://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-adoption-could-save-india-7-billion

And now people realized if bitcoin makes your life easier. Just learn a basic about bitcoin.
Follow the trends is better.

[mkc]

7 billion is a lot of money, India bitcoin exchange can really step in and make a lot of money. Is there any currency control in India?

[Evildrum]

Hypothetical numbers always presume that they tap into the whole segment of the population. Would be positive for bitcoin but have doubts on a lot of these services grabbing a footing in India.

[alyssa85]

In order for this to work, bitcoin needs to be legal in both the sending countries (the Gulf countries) and the receiving country (India). The remittance thing works from the USA to the Philippines because it is legal in both places.

But according to the following:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country#India

it is not:

On 24 December 2013, the Reserve Bank of India issued an advisory to the Indian public to be cautious in buying or selling of virtual currencies, including bitcoin.[67][68] Following the announcement bitcoin operators in the country began suspending operations.[69]

The first raid in India was undertaken a couple of days later in Ahmedabad by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on the office of the website, buysellbit.co.in, that provided a platform to trade in this virtual currency. The preliminary investigations found it to be in violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).[70]

[Wendigo]

Bitcoin offers an unmatched cheap way of sending money back home for everyone that's a fact. But I didn't know that the government of India is against Bitcoin. Are they going to regulate it and issue licenses to exchanges in the country? Can people use Localbitcoins in India or that's illegal too? That surely sucks not being able to use Bitcoin and miss out on less fees.

[MingLee]

Bitcoin may allow for people to reduce the fees charged to them through their remittance payments, but you also have to think of the jobs created by that $7b. Is it really worth it?

[Cuidler]

Bitcoin may allow for people to reduce the fees charged to them through their remittance payments, but you also have to think of the jobs created by that $7b. Is it really worth it?

The $7b could be used to other things than remitance fees like buying goods/services. So the $7b is going to stay in India economy, just used elsewhere. So yes, its always good idea to allow service make more effecient, the jobs lost in remitance sector will be created elsewhere where the increased spending of the saved $7b is going to end. So it is definitively worth it.

[Text]

Wow renovated in India, a great help indeed that in their country. Massive money will be saved. I also want to have such a project like that here in our country. It was really big benefits bitcoin for us, it make our life more easier. Now I imagine that bitcoin is a very big help for us.

[Kprawn]

Bitcoin may allow for people to reduce the fees charged to them through their remittance payments, but you also have to think of the jobs created by that $7b. Is it really worth it?

The $7b could be used to other things than remitance fees like buying goods/services. So the $7b is going to stay in India economy, just used elsewhere. So yes, its always good idea to allow service make more effecient, the jobs lost in remitance sector will be created elsewhere where the increased spending of the saved $7b is going to end. So it is definitively worth it.

Let's not forget the additional taxes that can be derived from this extra income for India. These reduced fees will move into India and people will pay taxes on the services and the goods they use that

income on. India would be stupid to turn their back on that, but most politicians and many countries are corrupt and could be bribed by these competing companies to vote against Bitcoin, when it

comes down to that.  

[nanonymousx]

I am wondering if a company use Bitcoin between two divisions of the same company, will this be prohibited by the law if Bitcoin is not legal in that country?
For example, if a person deposit currency in middle east, a trade is placed by western union, convert fiat to btc, at the same time, a trade is placed in India, convert btc to fiat, for the end user, they don't see bitcoin.

[DimensionZ]

So if Bitcoin is currently banned in India how will ZebPay operate legally in the country? I think their idea of offering Bitcoin services to the Indian people is commendable but if the Indian government doesn't recognize ZebPay as a legitimate Bitcoin exchange I fear they won't be allowed to do any business with Bitcoin at all. There are a lot of people without bank accounts in India and if this service launches Bitcoin will get a lot of new customers easily.

[Cuidler]

I am wondering if a company use Bitcoin between two divisions of the same company, will this be prohibited by the law if Bitcoin is not legal in that country?
For example, if a person deposit currency in middle east, a trade is placed by western union, convert fiat to btc, at the same time, a trade is placed in India, convert btc to fiat, for the end user, they don't see bitcoin.

There is no point using Bitcoin within the same company if there is no working Bitcoin exchange, for example people send money from middle east and in India they get India Ruppies based on exchange rate. Now if the company has very little India Ruppies, Bitcoin from middle east wont help if in India there is no working Bitcoin exchange...

[Patatas]

I can probably talk on this for hours and prove everything mentioned in the post is wrong.
1.ZebPay is a shit exchange service.All Indian exchange services are shit including Benson Samuel's Coinsecure.The number that you see are only bots.Their primary focus is to make money and not really landscape bitcoins for India.They increase their service fees almost by 2% every other 3 months.Plus no security ,your documents will be submitted to Government or anyone with a damn government tag anytime.Avoid them.

2.Indian labors in Gulf are not exactly employees but slaves.They work 24 hours for 3 dhirams  and send money back in India which is a lot .So your tax and other fancy terms doesn't make any sense here .

3.Why are you promoting Zebpay ,they are so cheap,have you seen their signature campaigns payment ? Its few satoshi's ,they make more money by sending a damn top up and the service fees are freaking huge .

4.Bitcoin in India will never eradicate anything .Especially if this exchanges want to rip people off from service taxes.

5. Government doesn't give two fucks if you use bitcoins or not .They're sure they're never approving it anyway.