While the mainstream media attempts to devalue the financial advantages of using bitcoin in regular transactions, recent studies and statistics demonstrate the significant benefit of substituting bitcoin in the place of conventional financial systems and platforms in emerging economies.
Financial control in developing countries such as Argentina or Bangladesh is dominated by the central and commercial banks. Because of these nations’ financial immaturity, major financial establishments and banks in emerging economies quite often charge incredibly high fees to its clients, with the exception of government officials and powerful elites. Such financial corruption leads to a substantially large unbanked and underserved population.
Because of this financial manipulation and the inability of the majority of the employees in developing countries to process expensive wire transfer, remittance networks have become increasingly popular in countries like India and the Philippines. According to the World Bank, the largest remittance markets are India, China and the Philippines.
Gradually, digital currencies such as bitcoin is capitalizing on the limitation and inefficiency of current financial and banking systems in place. In the Philippines, bitcoin-based remittance network and exchange Coins.ph has become one of the most popular financial platforms in the country, attracting freelancers, employees and expat workers. In fact, Coins.ph is the 330th most popular website in the entire country.
Similar bitcoin revolution is occurring in developing economies like Kenya and Ghana. The emergence of bitcoin remittance startups such as BitPesa are targeting the unbanked and underserved population that are in desperate help to send money overseas or across borders. Bank’s requirements and minimal deposit amount nearly makes impossible for regular residents to obtain a debit card or a bank account to transfer money in other regions or overseas. Thus, an increasing number of people are using bitcoin services to send money with lower fees, quickly, in a more secure method.
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