Bernhard Müller on CoinGeek Weekly Livestream: Centi offers an alternative to traditional payment systems

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Annual fees, foreign transaction fees, high interest charges, and risk of fraud—these are some disadvantages of credit card holders. As for retailers, paying a credit card processing company and fee charges for every transaction, not to mention the costs for equipment like card processing terminals, all of which add up over time.

Bernhard Müller, founder and chairman of Centi, wants to offer consumers and merchants a choice.

“We want to be a true alternative. We are really not debit. We are not credit. We are digital cash. And this is really what we want to establish,” he says.

Centi is a Bitcoin SV (BSV) payments processor offering solutions that enable merchants to accept digital currency payments through existing Point of Sale (POS) infrastructure. As he tells Kurt Wuckert Jr. on this episode of CoinGeek Weekly Livestream, “we’re just trying to disrupt the settlement layer of payments, so basically, Visa (NASDAQ: V), MasterCard (NASDAQ: MA).”

To disrupt the system, Bernhard discussed strategies and a plan of action.

“One way we can get into the market is first, by our pricing, by our services as well in micropayments,” he says.

As for strategy, Bernhard and his team closely studied how credit card companies managed in the sixties and seventies.

“They also started with the same issue, you have a so-called two-sided rollout, you need to convince merchants at the same time convince consumers they have exactly the same problem, and some of the things they did, we can well apply to today’s world and learn from it,” he explains.

The Switzerland-based company released a stablecoin on its platform pegged to the Swiss franc.

“It can be freely transferred to third parties; it can be integrated and used by anyone,” Bernhard explains. Why should people trust it? The token, Centi Franc Stablecoin (CCHF), is backed 1:1 by a Swiss bank guarantee: “Should we as issuer default, then every cent of each claim is actually covered by a Swiss bank guarantee.”

The Swiss franc has its benefits. As Bernhard describes, “the Swiss franc is largely known as a very stable currency and quite a crisis-resistant currency. Switzerland is a neutral country. For example, in times of warfare … Switzerland will not engage in any of that. We have a very sound economy … people like to go into Swiss franc also for it’s very low inflation compared to other countries.”

Centi currently serves merchants in Switzerland and Denmark and is looking to expand to more countries once the European Union’s regulation on Markets in Crypto-Assets (MICA) is in place. As for consumers, the company currently serves 20 countries.

The company also recently announced its integration with small business online payment platform Payrexx.

“If you want to go and pay there, you can use BSV; you don’t even need to use the Centi app.. but if you want to pay with the stablecoin, then currently we are the only app that supports that,” he says.

Wrapping up the discussion, Bernhard shared his thoughts about the ongoing squabbles in the Bitcoin economy, saying “we’re not really interested in that, we’re going after the 99% that don’t care about Bitcoin.” By this, he meant the consumers and merchants who can benefit from using the Centi app.

Bernhard explains, “They [consumers and merchants] will not know about any fights between different blockchains or blockchain philosophy … they don’t care about any of this, what matters is that it’s safe, that it works, that it’s fast, and that they have control of their money.”

Watch: Bitcade London 2023 brings together professionals in blockchain, gaming & payments