Be Mobile Africa, has launched a crypto payment gateway that ensures customers can convert digital currency payments to fiat currency.
Cedric Jeannot, the CEO of the digital-only bank, said the “new gateway is a game-changer” that also assists small-scale brands in “preserving wealth in unfavourable economic conditions.”
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The rise of neobanks like Be Mobile in South Africa
Be Mobile Africa launched into the South African market in September, and like every other digital-only financial institution, it seeks to revolutionize the country’s banking sector through technology.
The rise of technology has tremendously changed the outlook of the financial sector globally. Digital banks otherwise referred to as “neobanks,” are the repercussion of the increasing technological advancement of the modern digital era. The core feature of a neobank is that it is bereft of a physical location—it operates as a digital entity without any physical address or branch.
According to the numbers available on Statista, neobanks will oversee transactions worth over $3 trillion in 2022. Last year, the collective transactional value was $2.4 trillion, it adds, with neobank transactions growing by 32.6% in value on a year-over-year basis.
Be Mobile Africa claims in an official statement that the new cryptocurrency payment gateway will provide SMEs with fees up to ten times lower than traditional banks and actual transactions.
“It’s important to remember that for a multitude of reasons, Africa is one of the fastest-growing crypto markets in the world,” says Be Mobile CEO and co-founder, Dr Cedric Jeannot.
“Many African businesses don’t have access to the same tools that are available in the western market and are therefore leapfrogging over to crypto when it comes to payments.” This is especially true in countries where local currencies are losing value, where crypto can be used to preserve wealth in adverse economic conditions.”
Neo banks are growing to be an irresistible part of the South African economy basically because of their style of offering innovative schemes in a full grand style bereft of any sort of administrative hindrance popular amongst traditional retail banks. In the last three years, South Africa’s retail banking industry has changed trajectory because of the massive emergence and explosion of digital-based banks.
The vital distinction of these new branchless banks is that they ensure competitive rivalry in the local banking sector, through agile offerings and lower costs.
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Keeping Crypto with a Digital Bank
Be Mobile Africa has recently launched a cryptocurrency gateway that ensures South African businesses and investors are able to receive digital currency payments, a report disclosed. It included that customers of the newly-fathomed gateway have the choice to change incoming cryptocurrency into either the South African rand, the U.S. dollar, or the euro. Customers also can decide to keep their crypto with the digital bank without any reason to be sceptical about the safety of their assets.
According to a report by Itweb, the digital-only bank’s crypto gateway launch comes at a time when local banks have targeted accounts associated with cryptocurrencies. The report quotes Cédric Jeannot, the CEO of the digital-only bank, explaining why the crypto gateway has been created. He said:
“International payments have always been a pain point for African SMEs [small-to-medium enterprises]. Sending or receiving money from customers outside of one’s country is expensive and often takes days. We are seeing an increase in the number of African SMEs transacting with clients outside of their own domestic market, including other African countries. This new payment gateway is a game-changer.”
Cedric Jeannot included that SMEs using the gateway will also benefit by way of significantly lower fees incurred. He also argued that by exposing SMEs to crypto, his company is making available the means to “preserve wealth in unfavourable economic conditions.”
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