Recently, the bitcoin services firm Coins.ph has launched Teller which is a peer- to- peer bitcoin mobile app for users in Southeast Asia.This app works by matching customers who want to access financial services with the nearby tellers who can assist in depositing cash through this app.The teller collects the cash and transmits the same amount to the customer upon meeting, meanwhile earning a small fee in the process.
The consumers can pay their bills, top up their phones, remit money and gain access to other services using the coins.ph wallet, which is provided by a third party covered financial institutions.Ron Hose, the chief executive officer and founder of Coins.ph and a Silicon Valley entrepreneur stated, “It costs too much to put up branches everywhere, resulting in over two billion adults who are still unbanked.
Teller elegantly solves this problem by building a human branch network that allows financial institutions to reach a demographic they are not currently able to reach with their existing branch infrastructure.”He continued, “We’ve been getting really good traction with our existing bills, payment and money transfer services after shifting to using blockchain in the background.We think this is the natural progression as far as being able to reach customers.”Coins.
ph is rolling out the app with existing money exchange shops so that safety of the consumer can be ensured and is also rolling out small retail establishments who are already familiar with handling such transactions.Hose has also stated about the similarities that Teller shares with the much- anticipated Abra bitcoin application which has been created by former Netscape director Bill Barhydt.Abra bitcoin app transforms the users into mobile money exchange kiosks but Hose states that Teller has additional features,“We are offering a full spectrum of services to the customers, not just remittances.”According to Hose, Teller is becoming quite important as it continues to be costly for the traditional banks to service the developing world.He states, “It’s impossible to serve [the unbanked] with branches. The costs are too high, even in cities.
Think about someone who is earning $200 a month, and has an average balance of $100. The bank will make a $3 a year on them, if lucky. The minute that customer walks into a regular branch, the bank is already losing money”.Last year, BitPay one of the leading payment processing companies launched a new mobile app making payments easier.This app is accessible in 40 different languages and features tipping, tip reporting and multi- employee checkout.
