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Noah Pay: how to make crypto a competitive advantage for business

By:
FX Empire Editorial Board
Published: Jan 16, 2019, 16:37 UTC

The competition is something no merchant should ignore. A company either makes it or breaks it in the competitive business environment. That's why finding an advantage that helps to stand out becomes the top priority. Can cryptocurrencies become exactly this edge?

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Microsoft, Expedia, Subway and other big players started to receive cryptocurrency payments several years ago. Thousands of merchants worldwide followed their example. More than 260K Japanese companies from drugstores to fast food restaurants decided to add Bitcoin to their payment options. How can ordinary merchants benefit from accepting crypto payments?

Top benefits of cryptocurrency for merchants

By including crypto in the payment methods, merchants gain the following benefits:

Low commissions

Bank commissions are a huge burden for the companies. Vendors receiving credit card payments have to pay fees of nearly 25 cents for every operation, plus up to 4% of the deal total. Since crypto settlements remove any intermediaries, the transaction costs significantly reduce up to 1%.

Instantaneous transactions

In case of a payment via credit and debit cards, the vendor receives money on his account 3 and more days later. This is due to the fact that several agents participate in the process. On the contrary, cryptocurrency transfers are much faster thanks to blockchain. Although Bitcoin transactions are considered rather slow, it takes only 60 minutes to complete the process. That’s nothing compared to several days.

Borderless payments

Entering international markets means to deal with difficult and expensive exchanging processes. On the other hand, cryptocurrency transactions know no geographic borders, thus helping merchants to raise sales. For example, a small electronics retailer managed to sell USD 300 thousand worth of goods to almost 40 countries by accepting digital coins.

Those sellers that expand the payment methods with cryptocurrencies will be able to attract new clients and boost their profits. Overstock sold $124,000 in goods via bitcoin just in the 21 hours since it began accepting Bitcoin in 2014.

Why businesses are still reluctant to start dealing with virtual money? Because there are too few really good and functional crypto wallets, PoS terminals, payment applications, and gateways that help companies receive and process crypto payments. Nevertheless, there are a few pearls in the market.

Paving the way towards mass crypto adoption

Several path breakers have already developed and brought their crypto payment solutions to the market. One of such front runners, a Canada-based software developer Shopify, presented its payment gateway which allows merchants to accept cryptocurrencies as payment for goods and services. At the present time, it’s the most popular e-commerce platform counting 1000+ of merchants.

A London-based service SpectroCoin was launched in 2013. It supports payments in Bitcoin and altcoins such as Ether, NEM, and others. The company issues prepaid SpectroCoin cards that are accepted at 25 million stores and can be used in more than 30 million ATM operators all over the world.

Although most applications originated from the western countries until today, Asia also enters the market. The Noah Project brought its own solution to the table. This fintech venture is currently building an ecosystem fully powered by blockchain and its own token Noah Coin. The Noah ecosystem will be integrated into several industries: tourism (Noah Resort), real estate (Noah City), and finance (remittances).

The project team has already launched a crypto application for customers – Noah Wallet. Now, they have introduced the payment app for merchants and their clients – Noah Pay. It can be installed on smartphones, tablets, and other devices. Noah Pay allows buyers to acquire any goods and services from sneakers to accommodation while vendors will be able to quickly receive payments and smoothly process them. Clients will be able to pay with Noah Coins at first. In the future the range of accepted cryptocurrencies will be expanded.

The Asian region accounts for over 52% of all mobile payments worldwide, which makes it the perfect ecosystem for real-world cryptocurrency adoption to spread. Besides, Asia is the recognized fintech hub with Japan and Singapore on the front line of the blockchain industry. This fact allows Noah team to believe that their crypto payment solution will be in high demand among the community.

It seems vendors are getting closer than ever to customers especially to those who prefer spending cryptos. With all the payment options available today, businesses will be able to enter the digital space fully armed and ready to keep up with the market. Being the first to accept crypto payments will give merchants the advantage over their competitors.

About the Author

FX Empire editorial team consists of professional analysts with a combined experience of over 45 years in the financial markets, spanning various fields including the equity, forex, commodities, futures and cryptocurrencies markets.

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