Rebit's Bitcoin Solutions Targets the $2 Billion Canada-to-Philippines Remittance Market

The Philippines is a home to some of the industry’s most innovative startups including Coins.ph and Rebit.ph, that enable cost-efficient remittances from their home country to international recipients. At Bootstrap Manila, Bitcoin startups & investors revealed that 20 percent of remittances from the Philippines to South Korea are processed using Bitcoin. Coins.ph recently secured a $ 5 mln investment from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s fund, due to their unique approach that instead of competing with banks and existing financial services, it would be more beneficial for its users to....

Adding to the fast developing ecosystem of businesses looking to leverage blockchain technology with remittances, BTL Group LTD. has announced that it will begin showcasing its new technology at the BC Tech Summit on January 18th and 19th in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. They’re launching Interbit, a remittance platform along with a live demo showing the ability to significantly lower the cost of remitting funds from Canada to Mexico and The Philippines. These markets seem to be friendly to blockchain related finance technology as companies such as Bitso and Rebit have also found....

The practically non-existent start-up ecosystem in Philippines has suddenly sprung to life. Thanks to the bitcoin revolution, the number of start-ups, particularly cryptocurrency related ones is increasing from the past couple of years. The success of Bitcoin in Philippines can be attributed to the social and economic factors. The two main factors that has led to a bitcoin boom in Philippines: Philippines has a huge remittance market. Like China and India, there are many Filipino emigrant workers employed across the world. Like in any other developing countries, even the emigrant Filipinos....

FastCompany’s report revealed that overseas remittance totaled $429 billion in 2016. Some of the largest Remittance markets include China and the Philippines. Already, bitcoin startups have begun to dominate the remittance markets in the two countries, with the Philippines leading bitcoin remittance innovation. Both domestic and international remittance is a massive market within the Philippines. Companies such as Lhuillier and Palawan operate thousands of branches throughout the country, with deeper market penetration in comparison to international remittance companies such as Western....

When I first interviewed Miguel regarding Rebit, I was intrigued not just from a journalist standpoint, but as a Filipino. Sending money is quite expensive, especially when using conventional services, such as Xoom or Western Union. So when Miguel agreed to allow me to test the service, I was thrilled. Bitcoin is a great candidate for remittance, as the low fee required to send (known as the miners fee, currently around $0.06) and the near-instant transaction speeds fix traditional remittance services downfalls. The process is just as easy as it is explained in my interview with Rebit, I....