Emerging Market: Centbee

EMERGING MARKETS

Who is Centbee, and why did you start the company?

Lorien Gamaroff: Centbee is a Bitcoin SV payment company whose vision is making Bitcoin SV easy to use for everyone. We have several products available in the market today, which make it possible to buy, hold and spend Bitcoin SV. Before founding Centbee, I developed solutions for electrical smart grid utility companies and government organisations, and I noticed that these organisations often had challenges recovering their costs from their customers.

I saw Bitcoin SV as a solution to this problem and developed the world’s first Bitcoin payment system for electricity. This solution was ahead of its time since at that stage; it was difficult for people to acquire and use Bitcoin SV.

I decided to take a few steps back and start building an ecosystem that would make it easy for people to use Bitcoin SV as a payment system. I founded Bankymoon, an advisory and consulting company, in 2014 and spent several years educating corporates and governments on blockchains and cryptocurrency.

I always had the intention of building a simple bitcoin wallet and payment solution and began working on the prototype of what would become Centbee. In 2016, I met Angus Brown, who had 20+ year’s experience in the payments and banking industry and together we started Centbee.

You mention Bitcoin SV, why do you support that particular blockchain?

Lorien Gamaroff: Bitcoin SV is the original design of bitcoin as developed by its inventor Satoshi Nakamoto. He intended to create a system that could be regulated and would be able to scale to billions of users.

Over the years, several developer groups elected to fundamentally change the design of Bitcoin so that it would serve their purposes as an anonymous, unregulated system.

At Centbee, we believe that a blockchain-based payment system can only succeed if it complies with all local rules and regulations around transparency and privacy. Only Bitcoin SV allows for massive, global utility as well as complying with KYC and AML rules.

What is the role of Centbee for socio-economic development and upliftment in Africa?

Angus Brown: Bitcoin SV is a form of money that is designed to be non-inflationary. As the supply of Bitcoin SV is fixed and issuance decreases every year, it adheres to the Austrian school of economic principles. Unlike other currencies issued by central banks, this implies that the value of the money will not be deflated. Hence, the price should, over time, be stable against commodities and rise relative to fiat currencies. The long-term trend of Bitcoin has been a steady appreciation in price, which is especially valuable to those people in emerging economies who have seen the value of their savings deflated over time. Also, as there is no central issuer or controller of the currency, it is immune to seizure and arbitrary confiscation, such has happened in some countries when they face political or economic crises.

How do you think Centbee will impact the cards and payments industry in the future?

Angus Brown: Centbee has launched a low-cost, fast cross-border remittance service called Minit Money using Bitcoin SV. Minit Money enables customers to send money back home to support their family in minutes. This service is high-speed, reliable and cheaper than other remittance services. The typical fees of low-value remittance offerings to emerging market customers is often a significant proportion of the funds sent, so Minit Money enables these customers to get more value back home, where it is desperately needed.

Customers can spend their Bitcoin SV at online retailers without worrying about their card details or their identity being stolen either by phishing or by the retailer’s databases being hacked. Transaction processing is faster as no billing details are necessary, and Bitcoin SV provides instant confirmation. Retailers pay lower costs to accept payment, as the benefits of low mining fees (<$0.01) can be passed on.

Ret ailers can also accept payment from customers from anywhere in the world, and their receipts can also be retained (subject to local legislation) as Bitcoin SV.

Physical retailers merely have to display a QR code (either dynamic or static) to accept Bitcoin SV payment, without the costs of purchasing or renting a bank card payment terminal. Funds are cleared and settled immediately and are not subject to withholding, chargeback or reversal.

About Centbee: C entbee is a fintech company specialising in retail payments using Bitcoin SV. Founded in late 2016, our goal is to bring Bitcoin SV to t he world by making it the easiest way to send money and pay for g oods and services across the globe. O ur mission is to build an ecosystem using Bitcoin SV that r evolutionises payments. The new ecosystem will reduce costs, e nable new business models and create an open global economy to reshape the way billions of people interact with money fundamentally.

. About the authors: Lorien Gamaroff is a highly experienced software engineer and developer. He is regarded globally as a blockchain and bitcoin expert and has spoken at events all around the world on digital currencies, distributed ledgers and their benefits for emerging economies. He has addressed the IMF, World Bank, FBI and Commonwealth Secretariat, South African Reserve Bank, TEDx and a host of banking professionals and attorney generals throughout the world.

Angus Brown is a banking and payments expert with over 20 years’ experience in the industry. He founded the world’s first bank-backed digital currency program, eBucks at Rand Merchant Bank. Throughout his career, he led the development of the bank’s internet banking platform and later manager of the Loyalty programme, eCommerce and Internet Banking. He was the Head of Alliance Banking and Support Services at Mercantile Bank Limited and served as an executive of MMI holdings and Blue Label Telecoms.