African migrants using Bitcoin to send money home

[turvarya]

3% is not too bad, to be able to buy bitcoin with my bank account in my country cost me nearly %15 above market price! It is not great but I should be able to make this money back easily when I go to sell more.

Which country? Could you walk me through the fees you are paying in detail?
Maybe we can find you a better way to buy Bitcoin.

[theskillzdatklls]

how do bitpesa or the phillipino one work under the hood? like why is this any cheaper than WU?

i get that if one day someone could just send them btc and they could use the btc to buy food at pay rent in africa then mission accomplished. but the africans aint giving two fucks about btc so fiat conversion is still necessary. and given that parameter, what makes these remittance programs worth anything? why is it cheaper than operations already in place? is it because it can be sent directly to their phone and you don't need a brick and mortar location?

[Q7]

While a lot of people would say 3 percent is outrageous, if you look at overall picture, it is still far cheaper than any of the money remittance services. Before bitcoin these people have no choice but to use whatever available sending options they at have at that time, and judging by what they earn it's a pity that a large portion ends up in another person pocket.

[Pingu]

I know personally some people in Africa and what I hear from them is that in many areas of Africa have problems with electricity and internet access.
So, Bitcoin can be good solution for them but only when they improve infrastructure.
Until then, I'm afraid that most Africans will still have to use other payment services, like Western Union.

Which parts of Africa? Africa is a huge continent and that's like comparing Romania to the UK. It's true there are large parts of countries in  Africa that are without electricity and internet but the people that use the remittance market have to go where there are places with those to collect their money and if they can do that then they can use bitcoin too and save money in the process.

[tss]

yes.  great to see the BTC being used for what it is designed.  free the people from the abusive fees from the monopolies.

[Amph]

well that's a good type of adoption, bitcoin should spread more like that, helping the poor with it it's a good way to use it

[manselr]

It's clear Africa is the best continent that can help simulate the price of Bitcoin as there are more business opportunities that can be created with Bitcoin and the Blockchain technology also help the millions unbanked to have access to financial freedom. Thats the reason why DBF wants to empower and mentor the young aspiring entrepreneurs in Africa to enter into crypto world to help them sell their products and services to the international market in exchange for BTC. You can check the article written by our founder Philip Agyei Asare on how Bitcoin is entering into African market via SMS. http://cointelegraph.com/news/112281/bitcoin-making-inroads-in-africa-via-sms

[oblivi]

Great news, it's not only africa that has poor infractrustuctures, in places like india or even china... lots of places where bitcoin could inflitrate and spread like a nice virus.

[harrymmmm]

how do bitpesa or the phillipino one work under the hood? like why is this any cheaper than WU?

i get that if one day someone could just send them btc and they could use the btc to buy food at pay rent in africa then mission accomplished. but the africans aint giving two fucks about btc so fiat conversion is still necessary. and given that parameter, what makes these remittance programs worth anything? why is it cheaper than operations already in place? is it because it can be sent directly to their phone and you don't need a brick and mortar location?

I can offer a bit of data about rebit.ph here...

Sending about $50 via western union looks like about 5% to western union and 5% to the bricks and mortar cashout location.

Sending via bitcoin to rebit.ph removes that first 5% at the moment. The recipient still loses the 5% cashout location's fee (but if they have a bank account this fee is zero too).

[OpenOcean]

Well, this is demographic Bitcoin was ideally designed to service so hopefully it works out. I am not just talking about a positive reflection on the price either, I mean I hope it works out for their standard of living.

[allthingsluxury]

The fee's are much less than those of Western Union, which has ripped people off since its existence. BTC is its biggest threat.

[countryfree]

Here's the service:

https://www.bitpesa.co/

I've read articles that this company has raised substantial capital, and I'm pretty surprised because it's obvious it has no future. It might only enjoy some success now because no shops accept BTC in Africa, but once BTC will be widespread, nobody would need it any longer.

[turvarya]

Here's the service:

https://www.bitpesa.co/

I've read articles that this company has raised substantial capital, and I'm pretty surprised because it's obvious it has no future. It might only enjoy some success now because no shops accept BTC in Africa, but once BTC will be widespread, nobody would need it any longer.

There are a lot of businesses, that don't make any sense, once BTC is widespread. Doesn't mean, they don't make a lot of sense now.
Just look at purse.io. They don't make any sense, when Amazon starts accepting BTC.
Does that mean, they should stop their business now?

Your sense for business is horrifying.