The Latin American continent has an emerging bitcoin ecosystem. Countries like Brazil and Argentina are in the forefront when it comes to bitcoin usage and developing bitcoin technology based tools and businesses. The continent has seen an increase in the number of bitcoin related businesses in recent days.
As the number of bitcoin related start-ups continue to increase, the ones that are already established are on an expansion spree. BitInka is one such company that is planning to take over the entire region and offer bitcoin based financial services to the unbanked. BitInka is a bitcoin platform that allows users to buy, sell or trade bitcoin. The company currently has a presence in Peru, Venezuela Bolivia and Brazil. Soon it will be including three more countries – Argentina, Columbia and Chile.
Once the company expands to these new locations, BitInka will become the first universal bitcoin platform to serve most of the Latin American countries. The platform, founded by Roger Gabriel in 2013 has been working in partnership with local banks, financial institutions and local collection agencies to provide convenient withdrawal options for its users. Banco de Credito del Peru and Banco de Credito de Bolivia figure among the list of partner banks. BitInka allows customers to exchange bitcoin to Latin American local currencies and vice versa.
BitInka is trying to address the issues of the unbanked Latin America population by making it easier for them to join and use their platform. The number of unbanked and those without credit and debit cards is really high in the region, mainly due to complex procedure for opening a bank account or obtaining plastic currency. People are gradually realizing the importance of bitcoin and have started adopting to it.
Brazil and Argentina are already leading in terms of bitcoin adoption, while Argentina is the home of well-known bitcoin payment processors like BitPagos, Brazilians use it as a tool for investment and savings.