Over the years, payments have evolved gradually from traditional and slow cash payments systems down to the unconventional and instant online payments systems we have in practice now.
Till date, we still make use of the slow and traditional means of payment; the bank transfers, and the similar online alternatives. These methods cover more than 95% of the entire payments made worldwide, the very new alternative called cryptocurrencies make up just a very little percentage of the entire pie.
As much as we all want to admit to the slowness and inefficiencies of the traditional models, we cannot take away the fact that it is still powering the bulk of our payments on the globe.
But we cannot overlook these problems.
One major issue of our traditional payments systems is the speed. It could take anywhere from a couple of seconds to as long as 6 days to effect certain payments.
If your users are paying, say, $100, a few seconds would do that. But for payments as much as $1 million and above, it could take as long as 48 hours. When it is cross-border, expect to wait anything from 2 to 6 days. This is putting aside the stressful due diligence involved always.
The issue of fraud is another problem merchants face with our traditional financial systems. Late 2018, British Airways was the victim of a huge credit card data breach that affected more than 250,000 users. Personal and delicate details like name, email address and credit card information, including the CVV code were stolen.
The monetary effect of the data breach couldn’t be ascertained immediately, but British Airways was fined a record $328 million. This is a horror movie for merchants.
Privacy, as a global concern, has been getting increasing attention over the years. The Facebook Cambridge Analytica saga was a worldwide event that brought more eyes and minds to look into online privacy laws and practices. It caused a lot of regulatory adjustments that made business harder for merchants.
But, in truth, the government was just restricting the right to data access to themselves alone. They weren’t trying to protect the users.
Privacy is one thing that is almost impossible to have while performing traditional payments. From the government down to the banks, they all have that data, and users don’t like this.
Unnecessary international payment restrictions is another problem that comes with our traditional payment systems. This either delays business, increases cost of doing business, or completely prevents it from happening.
What about processing fees? It is common to see processing fees as high as 1.5% and even as high a 6%. For businesses with a razor thin margin, that is financial suicide. But it has been so for ages because of the lack of an effective alternative.
These issues are things crypto payments tackle wholly.
When you talk about speed, crypto payments happen almost instantly, no matter the amount, or distance between parties involved.
It completely eliminates the issue of border and unnecessary international restrictions. Cross-border payments happen instantly using crypto payments. There is zero difference between inter-country and intra-country payments using crypto payments. Crypto payments eliminates unnecessary International trade restrictions as much as possible using its cost-effective, fast and secure cross-border payment abilities.
The blockchain, the foundation on which all crypto payments systems are built is probably the most secure entity of the millennium. It uses very basic security principles to ensure the security of assets on the chain.
This security transcend just the digital assets. The data of the users are kept safe and private. In fact, users don’t actually need to input their data to make payments. Users of the payment gateways on the blockchain can boast of utmost privacy also because of the way the chain is fashioned.
Crypto payments do all these while managing the lowest processing fees possible. You can receive payments from one end of the planet to the other for as cheap as 0.25%. Compared to the 1%, 3% and 6% you always see with the traditional payment systems, it is a world apart.
For the past 16 months, Paylot.co has been pushing crypto payments for mainstream adoption in Africa.
In those 16 short months, they have been able to integrate and allow merchants accept payments in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC).
They have an even bigger collection of options for merchant settlements.
For merchants in Nigeria, they can get settled in the local Naira instantly.
Merchants in Nigeria and other countries can get settled in stable coins like USDT, USDC, Pax, and the major crypto currencies that is accepted on the platform like BTC, ETH, BCH, LTC.
They didn’t stop there. From what we learnt, they have been able to bring on another major coin to their arsenal; the popular Binance Coin.
Binance is the world’s largest crypto exchange having facilitated billions of dollars in crypto exchange between peer to peer users on their platform.
The Binance community is arguably the largest crypto community on the planet with millions of crypto enthusiasts.
This new integration will give the entire Binance community more avenues to utilise their assets. It is a really huge win for online payments in Africa, and even abroad.
This new integration will allow Paylot merchants to accept BNB and BUSD payments from their customers anywhere in the world. The fact that millions of people have the Binance Coin is serious good news for merchants.
This also makes it possible for them to settle merchants in Nigeria, and in any other country using BNB, or BUSD
This is great news for African businesses looking to expand their operations internationally without unnecessary restrictions.
You can find more info at Paylot.co
Talking about what to expect in the future, Paylot makes it clear that it would keep driving massive adoption for crypto payments in Africa, ultimately giving merchants better, easier, faster and cheaper options in growing their businesses within the African continent and beyond.
