Driving adoption for cryptocurrencies is very much tied to making the experience simpler for businesses and customers. CopPay’s CEO Ina Samovich joined CoinGeek’s Becky Liggero to discuss what her company is doing to advance that effort.
CopPay started its journey as a simple tire business, but quickly became more when cryptocurrency became part of its journey. Samovich explains:
“In the beginning, I was working in traditional industry, in retail sector, and when all this cryptocurrency buzz began, we decided to develop software that would allow us to accept cryptocurrencies. So little by little, we implemented in our stores. We were selling car tires and car services. And we were the first company in Belarus that started accepting cryptocurrencies in the stores. After that we decided to scale the project for European countries as well.”
Accessibility has a lot to do with why CopPay is advantageous for businesses. “First of all, this platform is online based,” Samovich said. “That’s why merchants can access it from any device, from the mobile phone, tablet or PC. Registration and verification time may take only 10 minutes, so they can start accepting cryptocurrencies and bring this additional payment method to their business right way.”
Is there any downside for a business to use this service? Not really, says the CEO. CopPay is all about making crypto payments easier. “Basically there is no risks for merchants because they can accept cryptocurrency in exchange mode, which means that they will receive fiat currency to their bank account.”
The experience for end users is just as easy as it’s always been. “If you come to one of our merchants that accept cryptocurrency, you just use your regular cryptocurrency wallet and you spend it from there,” Samovich said.
Despite regulatory issues, interest in cryptocurrency in Belarus and the rest of Eastern Europe can be surprising. “When we announced we accept cryptocurrency, we didn’t expect many people to come and spend it,” said Samovich. “But once tire season began, they start buying tires and doing services, and they start paying with cryptocurrencies, and that was really surprising for us. At the moment, I would say that people are interested in it, some of them bought cryptocurrencies and of course right now they hold it until the price goes up again.”
As more knowledge of cryptocurrency spreads and the industry grows up, Samovich predicts good things. “I know that once regulation is in place and once bad situations with ICOs and other stuff will go away, people will trust it more and they will use it more as well.”
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