It’s been at the centre of a geographic crossroads for centuries and now the country of Georgia is in the middle of a technological partnership.
American alt-fi company Snapcard and Georgian e-pay service UniPAY announced this week they are offering a new cryptocurrency account to serve Georgian businesses.
“We think there’s a lot more value in undeveloped markets,” Snapcard founder and CEO Michael Dunworth explained from San Francisco.
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The transactions will happen at a fraction of the cost of traditional bank fees, Dunworth noted. “It’s very cost-efficient for the end consumer.”
Koba Kurdadze, CEO of UniPAY, says the service will also be a boon to visitors to Georgia who can’t or don’t want to use their international cards.
“The Bitcoin option will help break down those frictions and barriers,“ he said in a release, noting it’s easy to register for a UniPAY account and load it with funds online or at a supporting outlet.
Dunworth says it’s the first deal where Snapcard has seen its back-end services “white-labelled” by another firm. It has the “block-chain technology” or infrastructure to make it one of many such partnerships, he added.
“I can send money like I am sending an email,” he said. “That’s one of the beautiful things about it.”
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