{"id":1076,"date":"2014-08-28T00:12:15","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T16:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.www.innovationiseverywhere.com\/?p=1076"},"modified":"2014-08-28T00:12:15","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T16:12:15","slug":"coins-ph-bitcoin-startup-reach-unbanked-philippines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/coins-ph-bitcoin-startup-reach-unbanked-philippines\/","title":{"rendered":"Coins.ph, a Bitcoin startup to reach the unbanked in the Philippines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While at tech conference <a title=\"Geeks on a Beach Philippines\" href=\"http:\/\/www.geeksonabeach.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Geeks on a Beach<\/a> on Cebu Island, Philippines, we\u2019ve met with <strong><a title=\"Coins.ph \" href=\"https:\/\/www.coins.ph\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Coins.ph<\/a> founder Ron Hose<\/strong>, as well as a few other players of the local digital currencies scene. Even flying in to Cebu, a geek on the next seat was coding on his own bitcoin project.<\/p>\n<h2><a href=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/ron-hose-coins.ph-philippines-bitcoins-geeks-on-a-beach-innovation-is-everywhere-remittance-e-commerce-emerging-markets-digital-currencies-4-3.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1079\" src=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/ron-hose-coins.ph-philippines-bitcoins-geeks-on-a-beach-innovation-is-everywhere-remittance-e-commerce-emerging-markets-digital-currencies-4-3.png\" alt=\"ron hose coins.ph philippines bitcoins geeks on a beach innovation is everywhere remittance e-commerce emerging markets digital currencies 4\" width=\"640\" height=\"259\" \/><\/a><\/h2>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2>Light financial regulation + remittances + mobile phones = Bitcoin opportunity in the Philippines<\/h2>\n<p>Many agreed in the conversations that <strong>the Philippines could lead the way in the field of digital currencies<\/strong>, for three\u00a0main reasons.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>First, <strong>the absence of regulatory constraint<\/strong> &#8211; so far &#8211; on the kind of transactions bitcoins involve, from remittances to micro-payment and loans. The political trend also seems positive with politicians such as <a title=\"Bam Aquino\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bamaquino\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Senator Bam Aquino<\/strong><\/a>, a former entrepreneur himself aged just 37, sending strong signals to the tech ecosystem, including <a title=\"Philippines startup bill\" href=\"http:\/\/www.senate.gov.ph\/lisdata\/1907016192!.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>a startup bill<\/strong><\/a> which should pass in the coming months.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/ron-hose-coins.ph-philippines-bitcoins-geeks-on-a-beach-innovation-is-everywhere-remittance-e-commerce-emerging-markets-digital-currencies-7-3.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1080\" src=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/ron-hose-coins.ph-philippines-bitcoins-geeks-on-a-beach-innovation-is-everywhere-remittance-e-commerce-emerging-markets-digital-currencies-7-3.png\" alt=\"ron hose coins.ph philippines bitcoins geeks on a beach innovation is everywhere remittance e-commerce emerging markets digital currencies 7\" width=\"436\" height=\"335\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Second, with <strong>one of the largest remittance market in the world<\/strong>, third just after China and India. In 2013 alone, more than <strong>$25 billion<\/strong> were sent back home by some 12 millions overseers Filipino workers, living in North America, the Gulf countries, and Asia. On these, Western Union takes an average <strong>10% fee<\/strong>. Bitcoin exchanges, with fees ranging from zero to one percent, could <strong>release about $2bn in the economy.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Third, because Filipinos are, as most emerging markets, <strong>heavy users of mobile phones<\/strong>. Ron Hose\u00a0spent a few months travelling around the archipelago, and noticed that <em>\u201clots have cellphones, even in the remotest islands [The Philippines have 7 000 \u201clarge islands\u201d], but sending, lending or paying is still a pain with lots of steps and transports involved\u201d.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2>The vision of Coins.ph: reaching the 75% unbanked Filipinos<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/ron-hose-coins.ph-philippines-bitcoins-geeks-on-a-beach-innovation-is-everywhere-remittance-e-commerce-emerging-markets-digital-currencies-1-3.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1081 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/ron-hose-coins.ph-philippines-bitcoins-geeks-on-a-beach-innovation-is-everywhere-remittance-e-commerce-emerging-markets-digital-currencies-1-3-159x300.jpg\" alt=\"ron hose coins.ph philippines bitcoins geeks on a beach innovation is everywhere remittance e-commerce emerging markets digital currencies 1\" width=\"159\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>A few other stats show how ripe seems to be the market for a new type of currency. <strong>Only 25% of Filipinos have a bank account, and less than 5% have a credit card<\/strong>. <em>\u201cIt\u2019s not going to change\u201d<\/em>, says Ron Hose. \u201c<em>Banks have huge costs, such as security, offices, staff\u201d<\/em>. They have nothing to earn from offering services to Filipinos households with <strong>$440 revenues on average<\/strong> (Census.gov.ph, 2012), and little no non-existent saving capacity. <em>\u201c<strong>A bank would lose money on any new customer<\/strong> of this type\u201d<\/em>, he adds.<\/p>\n<p>Despite this, <strong>consumption of financial services<\/strong> is pretty high in the Philippines, with rip-off rates, from Western Union\u2019s 10% averages to traditional <strong>face-to-face loans with 20% rates<\/strong>. Even telcos apply about 10% fees when people <strong>send money through the local mobile money system <a title=\"Gcash \" href=\"http:\/\/www.globe.com.ph\/gcash\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Gcash<\/a><\/strong><a title=\"Gcash \" href=\"http:\/\/www.globe.com.ph\/gcash\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">,<\/a> operated by Globe, the dominant operator.<\/p>\n<p>Not only is there room to disrupt these rates, but also <strong>the speed of transactions.<\/strong> <em>\u201cThere\u2019s no savings here. When you need money, you need it fast. You would typically ask your family first, and then maybe a lender. <strong>Being poor is expensive<\/strong>\u201d<\/em>, says Ron Hose.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2>Remittances, e-commerce: two first fields of application for Coins.ph<\/h2>\n<p>The startup, founded in 2012, is now engaging in two fields to develop the culture of digital currencies in the Philippines.<\/p>\n<p>First, with <strong>remittances<\/strong>, both from overseas, and inside the country itself. Unofficial estimations assess than the <strong>money sent by Filipinos within the country might amount to $50-70bn each year<\/strong>, two to three times as big as the remittances from overseas workers.<\/p>\n<p>Sending money through Bitcoins make it <strong>faster<\/strong> (no need to go to the local branch of the remitter or bank), <strong>easier<\/strong> (no need to be in the same \u201cclosed garden\u201d on the sender and receiver side, such as a telco or a bank), and with time and new services, less need to cash in and out could make it <strong>virtually free.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>More, from a sender point of view, <strong>the savings can also be calculated in man-hours.<\/strong> Say you send $200 from Singapore, where Filipino maids typically works 25 days a month for $500 on average. The cost of a transfer at 10% average is the same than a day worked \u201cfor free\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/ron-hose-coins.ph-philippines-bitcoins-geeks-on-a-beach-innovation-is-everywhere-remittance-e-commerce-emerging-markets-digital-currencies-5-3.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1082\" src=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/ron-hose-coins.ph-philippines-bitcoins-geeks-on-a-beach-innovation-is-everywhere-remittance-e-commerce-emerging-markets-digital-currencies-5-3.png\" alt=\"ron hose coins.ph philippines bitcoins geeks on a beach innovation is everywhere remittance e-commerce emerging markets digital currencies 5\" width=\"640\" height=\"599\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>E-commerce<\/strong> is another big market where Bitcoins and digital currencies can help more Filipinos pay for goods and services. If you don\u2019t have a credit card to pay with, the customer journey looks like this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>you research and \u201cbuy\u201d online<\/li>\n<li>you get an invoice to be paid at your local bank with a time limit.<\/li>\n<li>you travel to your bank through traffic jams and queues<\/li>\n<li>once you get the payment receipt from the bank, you scan it\/send it to the merchant<\/li>\n<li>you then get delivered<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So far, Coins.ph makes Bitcoin payments possible with <strong>two large e-commerce platforms<\/strong> in the Philippines (<a title=\"MetroDeal\" href=\"http:\/\/www.metrodeal.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MetroDeal<\/a> and <a title=\"CashCashPinoy\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cashcashpinoy.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CashCashPinoy<\/a>), as well as with <a title=\"Bench Philippines\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bench.com.ph\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bench<\/a>, a clothing and lifestyle brands whose giant ad billboards can be seen alongside Manila\u2019s highways.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>A typology of Bitcoin users in the Philippines<\/h2>\n<p>Based on almost two years of data, Ron Hose sees <strong>two types of users of digital currencies<\/strong> in the Philippines:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Big clients<\/strong> who buy Bitcoins in large quantities to pay with the currency, such as <strong>employers paying their staff<\/strong> in Bitcoins (it\u2019s the case of Coins.ph, to save time and rates of bank transfers or Paypal fees).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Grassroots people sending about 1 000 pesos each time<\/strong> ($22 as of August 2014), with fast cash in and cash out as again, inexistent savings make it necessary to recover a high fluidity of payments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When asking Ron Hose what could make his company crash (sorry for the French pessimism here!), he\u2019s quite confident that <em>\u201cnothing can beat digital currencies. If you\u2019re not using them in 10 years, you will look like someone today using cassettes and a walkman\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/ron-hose-coins.ph-philippines-bitcoins-geeks-on-a-beach-innovation-is-everywhere-remittance-e-commerce-emerging-markets-digital-currencies-6-3.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1083\" src=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/ron-hose-coins.ph-philippines-bitcoins-geeks-on-a-beach-innovation-is-everywhere-remittance-e-commerce-emerging-markets-digital-currencies-6-3.png\" alt=\"ron hose coins.ph philippines bitcoins geeks on a beach innovation is everywhere remittance e-commerce emerging markets digital currencies 6\" width=\"640\" height=\"308\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The roadmap of the company is showing a lot of strengths too. Coins.ph just launched <a title=\"Thailand Bitcoin\" href=\"http:\/\/e27.co\/philippines-coins-ph-launches-thailands-second-bitcoin-exchange-20140826\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Thailand\u2019s second Bitcoin exchange<\/strong><\/a>, and is developing quite a few very cool products for the next few weeks (you can <a title=\"Coins.ph philippines\" href=\"http:\/\/more.coins.ph\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sign-up to know about their next surprise<\/a>, to be released on September 8th).<\/p>\n<p>Overall, Coins.ph story is not without reminding us of what we\u2019ve seen during the <a title=\"Afrikoin Bitcoin Africa\" href=\"http:\/\/www.www.innovationiseverywhere.com\/will-technology-bitcoins-disrupt-remittance-market-discussion-african-startups-afrikoin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Afrikoin conference in Nairobi, Kenya<\/strong><\/a>, a year ago. Similarities between these two high remittance countries exist, as well as a rising ecosystem of apps, developers, and communities within the field of digital currencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While at tech conference Geeks on a Beach on Cebu Island, Philippines, we\u2019ve met with Coins.ph founder Ron Hose, as well as a few other players of the local digital currencies scene. Even flying in to Cebu, a geek on the next seat was coding on his own bitcoin project. Light financial regulation + remittances [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[47,49,51,87],"tags":[46,82,256,258,138,208,244,259],"class_list":["post-1076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-countries","category-innovators-category","category-markets-category","category-startups-innovators","tag-asia","tag-bitcoins","tag-bop","tag-digital-currencies","tag-e-commerce","tag-remittances","tag-the-philippines","tag-western-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}