Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange Bitspark Limited announced today it launched services to the African continent with Nigeria as the first destination on the list.
The company says its rates are roughly 15% better than the foreign exchange rates used by other competitors. Nigeria, an emerging economy has the largest population on the continent. In 2015 the country received $21 billion in remittances from overseas, predominantly from the US and UK.
Bitspark is launching with support for almost 20 banks and mobile cash.
Exchange rates into Naira as quoted by Bitspark:
At 368 NGN on Bitspark versus the 315 NGN per USD compared to competitor service XE.com at the time of writing, its clear Bitspark has the better offer here. This means for every 1 dollar you send to Nigeria users receive $0.14 more than if they used the mentioned competitor’s offer, which at the end of the day can work out to be hundreds of dollars on the average transaction. BitSpark makes this possible by using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as the method of payment without the need for expensive banks, especially when dealing in more exotic currency such as NGN.
The Bitspark team said:
“This is the first of many upcoming destinations in Africa we will be launching and we have a particular focus on inter-Africa payments, an often overlooked but huge area for payments with massive inefficiencies that can be solved. Stay tuned for more soon!”