By George Ward
On December 6th, one of the world’s top digital payment platforms, Strike, launched a new feature called “Send Globally.” The new feature would allow low-cost and fast payments to Africa.
Meanwhile, the new feature is now available to Strike clients in the United States. Also, the payment giant said it would offer initial coverage to African countries like Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria.
While speaking at a Bitcoin conference in Ghana called AfroBitcoin, Jack Mallers, the CEO and Founder of Strike, announced the new partnership with Bitnob, a mobile app platform. According to Mallers, the partnership aims to foster cross-border payments into Africa using the “Send Globally” functionality.
Mallers stated that slow settlement, increased fees, and inadequate innovation negatively impact developing countries. According to Mallers, sending funds out and into Africa is very expensive.
“Payment firms fund it difficult to run their activities in Africa fully. This has made it almost impossible for people to send money to their family in Africa,” Mallers added.
However, the CEO noted that Strike’s main goal is to solve this problem and allow individuals to send USD across borders. The new partnership allows US residents to send funds to supported African countries using the company’s new feature built on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.
At the conference, the Strike CEO said the transactions would be free. Through Send Globally, a US Strike user can transfer funds to Kenya, Ghana, ad Nigeria at no cost.
The payments will automatically be converted to Kenyan Shillings, Cedi, or Naira and sent to the user’s bank or Bitnob account. This is good news, especially for African nations with few cross-border payment options.
No Transaction Fees For Payments – Bitnob CEO
Bernard Parah, the CEO, and Founder of Bitnob, stated that the present financial system is set up in a way that does not allow equal access for institutions and people from Africa. Parah added, “We have built a tool to reduce pressure on African financial institutions to get USD liquidity.”
As a result, users can now send money from the US to Africa using cheap methods. This would save them billions of Dollars that they would have spent on transfer fees.”
Strike promised to support more payment services for the African continent by leveraging partnerships and technological integrations. Strike is a Bitcoin-built payment firm that fosters fast, international, and cheaper payment for consumers and businesses.