Businesses in Spartan nation have found an alternative option in the form of Spartan Route to receive and transfer funds across borders amidst economic restrictions.
Greece has been plagued with economic problems for a while now. Currently the country is struggling to raise funds to keep itself afloat and at the same time, it is seeking its creditors – the Troika comprising International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and Eurozone to write off a huge portion of the debt owed by the Mediterranean nation. The country has become the first country in the modern-day world to default on debt repayment to International Monetary Fund after it missed the June 30 deadline to make a 1.7 billion euro repayment.
In order to prevent the economy to collapse, the government has imposed capital controls and withdrawal limits. The withdrawal limits currently stand at 60 euros per day for individuals. Imposition of withdrawal limits have severely impacted individuals and small businesses as they don’t have a way to pay for the goods or services they require. Recently PayPal, the international payment processor has stopped its international transfer services and funding option for its wallet service in Greece. People can however still use PayPal service to receive funds. Online and electronic transactions are not operational anymore in the region.
In order to overcome this situation, an Irish bitcoin company has introduced a novel service targeted towards the Greek businesses. The company Spartan Route allows Greek businesses to invoice their customers in euros and ship products through the usual route. Spartan Route will then collect the payment from the business’ customers in euros and transfer it to the business’ as bitcoin. As bitcoin is not subjected to any capital controls, businesses can make use of the received bitcoin to meet their expenses or to pay their suppliers, both domestic and international.
It was speculated that in case of Greece’s exit from European Union, the country may adopt either Drachma or bitcoin as its currency. But Greeks have decided to stick with European Union during the recent referendum, where over 60 percent of the Greek population voted “no” for Grexit.