Bitwage debuts US to PH payments platform using bitcoin

SAN FRANCISCO — Bitwage has launched a new international bitcoin-powered payroll solution that allows US companies to pay employees, freelancers and contract workers in the Philippines in pesos.

Payment processors like PayPal can take from five to eight business days to transfer funds with substantial hidden fees in the exchange rate up to eight percent, Bitwage does this in two to three days with 50 to 90 percent lower costs.

This new service allows the Filipino employee, freelancer and contract worker to receive faster, lower-cost payments without having their employers and clients sign up.

The company’s first partnership in its international expansion is with Philippine bitcoin exchange Coins.ph This partnership allows Bitwage to quickly and cheaply pay employees, freelancers and workers in the Philippines, even if they do not have a bank account.

This is advantageous to the average Filipino because according to Shamina Singh, executive director of MasterCard WorldWide’s Center for Inclusive Growth, up to 73 percent of Filipino citizenry is “unbanked” or “underbanked,” and are part of the estimated four to five billion of the world’s population excluded from the modern financial system.

According to the Bitwage website, its mission is to “bring modern financial tools to those who do not have access to the current banking system” by modernizing the payroll experience by leveraging next-generation payment protocols, such as Bitcoin and other Block Chain technologies.

Instead of having money sent through the costly and inefficient international banking wire system, Bitwage leverages the efficiency of the “bitcoin protocol,” which is built on cutting-edge “Block Chain Technology,” removing several layers of intermediary institutions, which all take their cut of payroll. Over time, this can amount to a great deal of extra pesos saved by the Filipino employee, freelancer and worker, according to Bitwage.

Once employees, freelancers, or contractors sign up to the Bitwage system, they are automatically furnished with a US bank account to provide to their employer or clients. Instead of sending an international wire transfer, the employer just sends an expedient and low-cost domestic wire transfer to their assigned bank account within the Bitwage system. Bitwage then leverages bitcoin and the Block Chain to transfer the value from the US to the Philippines.

Via Coins.ph, Bitwage Users in the Philippines can choose to collect Philippine pesos or preloaded cash cards, or receive their payments via bank transfers or mobile money. Even door-to-door delivery of cash is possible.

Considering the burgeoning Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) industry in the Philippines is projected to grow to $48 billion by 2020, and doubling in number of employees, Bitwage’s international payroll solutions may be coming at just the right time.

Multinational companies such as Accenture, IBM Business Services, and Thomson Reuters Corp. Pte. Ltd., which are in the Top 20 BPO companies in terms of revenue, can all take advantage of financial efficiencies that Bitwage, bitcoin and Block Chain technology have to offer.

Bitwage is currently part of Plug and Play’s bitcoin accelerator program in Sunnyvale, California.