The Philippines is known for a few things – not all of which positive as far as getting digital and banking is concerned. With a huge concentration of social media users in the world, it took the title of the social media capital of the world from 2013 up to the present.
Yet, the country lags behind its neighbors in terms of the average internet speed of its people especially when there are some countries nearby such as Singapore, which takes the lead from the Southeast region.
Internet access in the country, while accessible, is slow for the most parts, which can be problematic to incorporate on the majority’s lifestyle.
But it is not only the internet that is the concern on its people, the country as well is a home to people who are still traditionalists in matters of paying for goods or services, that is, through the use of paper money and coins as well as the relative lack of the majority of having their own bank accounts and credit cards.
How do Filipinos fit in the e-Commerce world, whose majority of the population still prefer to use the traditional paper money and coins when paying off for goods?
While some e-Commerce businesses create flexible means of payment befitting what the majority of its customers are viable of such as the “cash on delivery” payment, others who see the potential of digital payments in a form of a cryptocurrency, make use of BitCoin as its means.
Watch this video from Mashable explaining what a bitcoin is and how it works.
A cryptocurrency (or crypto currency) is a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure the transactions and to control the creation of new units. Cryptocurrencies are a subset of alternative currencies, or specifically of digital currencies. Bitcoin became the first decentralized cryptocurrency in 2009. Since then, numerous cryptocurrencies have been created. These are frequently called altcoins, as a blend of bitcoin alternative. Source: Wikipedia
But is the Philippines ready yet to adopt on BitCoins as a viable means of payment for many of its business establishments?
Apparently, still few say yes who currently implemented on its system as integral to their businesses given also the good prospects about it; but adoption is still as something the masses find too complicated and are not ready of.
According to Ron Hose, CEO of Coins.ph, with the limitations imposed by the majority of the population’s limited utilization of banking and easy access to the internet, there are real-life problems that can be solved using BitCoins which bypass them. But 2015 is still a year seen as a time where BitCoin users are simply early adopters still.
John Bailon, the co-founder and CTO of Satoshi Citadel Industries (SCI), on the other hand, sees 2015 as a year when as much as 10 million overseas Filipino workers will have been reached by the use of BitCoin. This is even complemented by Miguel Cuneta, co-founder of SCI, with the belief that BitCoin’s growth will be exponential for that same year.
JR Contreras of mBTC.ph seems to agree by stating that SMS, being the country’s most reliable and affordable mobile service, may have a big impact on how BitCoin will be adopted, especially among those in the province.
But the implementation of BitCoin is something that is not without its own problems, namely with its function as isolated from today’s main players in the world’s financial control, apart from the complexity it poses to its potential users, among other issues.
Since its conception, BitCoin have seen some support while also opposition. For a system that is deemed “anonymous” in general function and without a proper regulation, BitCoin is a system that remain to be “risky” for many to use, especially that which concerns of its possible collapse as seen at one point in Japan with Mt. Gox.
Sources:
https://www.techinasia.com/ron-hose-bitcoin-great-unbanked-people-philippines/
https://www.techinasia.com/bitcoin-philippines-predictions-2015/
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