Bitpesa: Delivering cross-boarder payments
What is BitPesa?
BitPesa is an online platform that converts digital currency such as bitcoin into local African currencies. It’s a pan-African platform redefining how businesses make payments to and from sub-Saharan Africa. Focused on using cutting-edge blockchain technology to increase efficiency across markets, BitPesa opens corridors for business payments and trade between Africa and the rest of the world.
What products does BitPesa offer?
Using BitPesa, organizations can now take control of their payments to employees, distributors, or suppliers, as well as collect payments from African customers. This includes payment from popular mobile money services as well as delivery to an organization’s national or international bank account on the same day. In Tanzania BitPesa can be used with Airtel money, Mpesa and Tigo pesa.
In order to improve access to financing for SMEs in Africa BitPesa partnered with Bitbond, connecting fixed-income investors with small business owners who need loans. To make global cross-border lending possible, the platform uses the bitcoin blockchain for payment processing.
Bitbond loans are paid out directly to the borrower’s mobile money or bank account in their local currency. The integration between Bitbond and BitPesa is now live in Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania.
When was it launched in Tanzania?
BitPesa expanded to Tanzania in November 2015, offering instant payments from seven different mobile money networks and over 60 banks in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania itself.
Where is BitPesa Located?
BitPesa is headquartered in Nairobi, with offices and staff in Lagos, Dakar, London and Luxembourg. You can also find them online at www.bitpesa.co
