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Have you considered adding bitcoin support to your product? Assuming the receiver has a way to convert bitcoin to/from their local currency, this may remove som

by marcell 12y ago

Have you considered adding bitcoin support to your product? Assuming the receiver has a way to convert bitcoin to/from their local currency, this may remove some friction in transfering value between individuals. btcjam.com is doing something like this with bitcoin.

jacquesm 12y ago
What use would that be? Far more people in the world have not used bitcoin than the percentage that has, it looks like it might be a cheap PR win but in actual usage it will amount to a small fraction of nearly nothing. And then you still have to convert them with associated costs and repay the lender in some ridiculously volatile currency. Supporting bitcoin (unless you are a bitcoin start-up) seems like a silly thing to do for a company that needs to prioritize due to resource constraints.
- marcell 12y ago
  1) People without bank accounts can receive BTC, and sell them for cash 2) Sending BTC internationally is simpler than sending fiat
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    How will they sell them for cash without using an exchange and/or a bank account? I can't just convert a bitcoin sitting in my wallet to something I can give to someone else to exchange for cash without a whole pile of guarantees. The only people I can trade bitcoin with for cash is other bitcoin users, which - as I noted above - are few and far between. Yes, sending BTC internationally is simpler, but that does not mean the recipient can do the same things with them as they can do with fiat, and as such it just shifts the problem to the recipient. When you send cash (using for instance western union) it is almost instantly available as well, without all the downsides of having to find someone that will trade your bitcoins at something approaching their market value.
    - rational-future 12y ago
      Western union will often take over 5% of a transfer through fees and extremely greedy exchange rates. A BitCoin transfer on the other hand is virtually free. IMHO there will be a high overlap between people using a lending startup and Bitcoin users, as both are modern bank alternatives. In my humble experience exchanging Bitcoins for cash was hard a couple of years ago, but not today. All my geek friends and colleagues use it.
jkurnia 12y ago
We did consider adding bitcoin support, but opted to refrain for now because: - we did not identify a straightforward way to convert bitcoins to cash in borrower currencies - it seemed from our informal research that supporting bitcoin has not resulted in many new supporters for most nonprofits that have tried it - supporting another payment method would add overhead weight to our organization - so few of our lenders use bitcoin that we estimated the savings in transfer fees wouldn't be worth introducing more complication in our payment options We're keeping an eye on bitcoin and may begin supporting it if these conditions change.

by marcell 12y ago

jacquesm 12y ago

What use would that be? Far more people in the world have not used bitcoin than the percentage that has, it looks like it might be a cheap PR win but in actual usage it will amount to a small fraction of nearly nothing. And then you still have to convert them with associated costs and repay the lender in some ridiculously volatile currency. Supporting bitcoin (unless you are a bitcoin start-up) seems like a silly thing to do for a company that needs to prioritize due to resource constraints.

marcell 12y ago
1) People without bank accounts can receive BTC, and sell them for cash 2) Sending BTC internationally is simpler than sending fiat
- jacquesm 12y ago
  How will they sell them for cash without using an exchange and/or a bank account? I can't just convert a bitcoin sitting in my wallet to something I can give to someone else to exchange for cash without a whole pile of guarantees. The only people I can trade bitcoin with for cash is other bitcoin users, which - as I noted above - are few and far between. Yes, sending BTC internationally is simpler, but that does not mean the recipient can do the same things with them as they can do with fiat, and as such it just shifts the problem to the recipient. When you send cash (using for instance western union) it is almost instantly available as well, without all the downsides of having to find someone that will trade your bitcoins at something approaching their market value.
  - rational-future 12y ago
    Western union will often take over 5% of a transfer through fees and extremely greedy exchange rates. A BitCoin transfer on the other hand is virtually free. IMHO there will be a high overlap between people using a lending startup and Bitcoin users, as both are modern bank alternatives. In my humble experience exchanging Bitcoins for cash was hard a couple of years ago, but not today. All my geek friends and colleagues use it.

jkurnia 12y ago

We did consider adding bitcoin support, but opted to refrain for now because: - we did not identify a straightforward way to convert bitcoins to cash in borrower currencies - it seemed from our informal research that supporting bitcoin has not resulted in many new supporters for most nonprofits that have tried it - supporting another payment method would add overhead weight to our organization - so few of our lenders use bitcoin that we estimated the savings in transfer fees wouldn't be worth introducing more complication in our payment options We're keeping an eye on bitcoin and may begin supporting it if these conditions change.