Bitcoin services provider SpectroCoin has commissioned new bitcoin-to-cash remmitance service that will be available for residence of Europe and Central Asia.
SpectroCoin, headquartered in Lithuania and the UK, has launched new service for converting bitcoin into cash. The service will be available in 25 countries across Central Asia and Europe.
SpectroCoin CEO Vytautas Karalevičius said the service is targeted at expanding its services to the unbanked sector.
The company’s chief compliance officer Mantas Mockevičius said: “In some countries, they don’t need it much, but in Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Armenia and lots and lots of countries, it’s a very useful service because there are lots of unbanked people there, and banking infrastructure is not so developed as, say, in Europe. So a person can get funds very easy. He can actually use bitcoin as a remittance.”
Bitcoin-to-cash services are already available in Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Poland and Ukraine.
SpectroCoin charges a 4.5% fee for each bitcoin-to-cash transaction.
Mockevičius suggested the new service will likely appeal to consumers in parts of the world where moving money is too expensive.
“As a user, I get bitcoins from the person abroad. I convert it to cash and order the withdrawal in my country. I think it’s a very useful service for people without bank accounts,” Mockevičius said.
In order to convert bitcoin to cash, you have to enter the sum of fiat currency you want to receive and enter your place of residence. SpectroCoin then displays the total amount of money the user will receive, minus the fee. The cash can be withdrawn from SpectroCoin’s partnering banks, post offices or financial institutions.
Mockevičius noted that it will take users maximum five days to receive money. The company’s partners must post a paper, which then will be taken by the user to a bank. He added that although the new service will be slow, the quick delivery of brokerage and cryptocurrency wallet services is the company’s key focus.
“We are a bit more expensive than other services that work through bank wire, but we are much faster,” Mockevičius said. “So, if the user needs the bitcoins the same day, we can very easily provide that service. This is our target market, clients who need speed. Selling bitcoin and withdrawing to cash takes time, so it’s a slightly different model.”
SpectroCoin is now committed to enhance its services due to the high competition in Europe, which increased after such giants as Coinbase and Bitpay entered the market.
Founded in 2013, SpectroCoin provides localized bitcoin exchange solutions for citizens of Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Romania, Panama, Peru, etc.
Polina is an undergraduate student at Belarusian State Economic University (BSEU) where she is studying at the faculty of International Business Communication for a degree specializing in Intercultural Communication. In her spare time she enjoys drawing, music and travelling.