In the last several decades, the procedures our world has integrated as payment methods for goods and services has advanced considerably. You are probably counting them off in your head right now: PayPal, AliPay and so on.
From grabbing our purses and wallets, we have evolved to just comfortably hitting the stores with our mobile phones. Why? Because we can now pay for truckload of things with just the tap of a button on our banking apps.
This progress is hand-in-hand with the necessary adaptation of financial systems and infrastructure to changes in payment methods.
And the technology keeps getting better. Today, digital currency is stirring massive attention as central banks and governments make conscientious efforts to research in order to flow with the times and facilitate potential change.
Meanwhile, the industry is currently experiencing the advent of new technology, wide range of financial services, rivalry and partnership. What is the goal here? To sponsor security, access to payments and super speed in transactions.
This is a pretty tough shift if the world has depended on its traditional methods for a long time, meaning that any fiscal innovation of the digital sort ought to be developed along the lines of affordability and accessibility.
For key players such as regulators, these developments ought to be followed closely. In no time, the traditional fiscal system will see a tremendous rise in dynamic, unconventional payment entities that won’t be going away anytime soon.
Any central bank and regulators eager to reap maximum benefits from these payment innovations will be required to participate in the industry more than ever.
Now that we’ve established these facts, what role is Algorand playing in this development? Algorand is effectively and efficiently enabling end-to-end digital payments, an initiative supported solidly by participants all over the fast-growing ecosystem.
One such participant is Planetwatch, an online retailer whose association with Algorand clearly illustrates how commendable a blockchain that is protected and accessible is.
On the side, there’s the superb tools and services supplied by other groups utilizing the Algorand platform.
There’s a background story to how this incredible journey started. As a dealer in online air monitoring sensors, Planetwatch sought to improve customer service on the company’s WooCommerce implementation.
After finding other crypto currencies too unstable for issuing out payments and other settlements, Planetwatch settled for Algorand and it was not the only company to do so.
Bleumi Pay is one company that is currently enjoying the benefits of Algorand’s speed, safety and simplicity. In fact, these same features play a primary role in the choice of both companies coupled with Algorand’s integration with widely used stablecoins.
Based in Boston, Bleumi’s central objective is to create payment solutions that completes the blockchain ecosystem.
This will be achieved by allowing the implementation of digital currency by businesses as payout use cases as well as everyday payment takes place.
With Bleumi, your company or business gets amazing integration tools that are just perfect for the size of your business. This tools enable users to integrate payouts and payments. There are other companies leveraging the Algorand platform.
Monerium is one of them, upping the ante with stablecoins by issuing money on the Algorand blockchain; euros to be specific. Monerium’s objective is to make digital currency accessible, safe and scalable.
On Monerium, you can link your Algorand address with your current bank account. This is just one of the perks, you can also create another IBAN in your name.
This allows you to smoothly transfer euros to Algorand over the SEPA network. Interestingly, Monerium is the first Electronic Money Institution with authorization to run its agenda in the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area. It is also the first company to issue e-money on blockchains.
It probably registered somewhere that euro is the world’s most traded currency after dollar. This makes the impact of Monerium all the more essential as it serves to cover the chasm between Algorand ecosystem and traditional fiscal systems.
Simultaneously, euro is an easy medium for transferring and accepting payments on the chain as well as off the chain with Planetwatch. It is also a Bleumi offering.
There’s more. Digital wallets are valid for checkouts on the Planetwatch website. As long as the currency in any wallet is an Algorand supported asset such as euro, USDC, Algo and so on. To fund its objectives, Planetwatch will receive money and the orders before shipping every sensor to its designated user.
Using this platform, transactions can be performed seamlessly in under five seconds at the cost of 0.0001 euros. Without having to make use of an exchange, Planetwatch can then transfer the euros easily from its crypto currency wallet to its bank account.
Pretty cool right? In this article we have used Planetwatch, Monerium and Bleumi as use cases but there are other use cases; companies whose agenda align with that of Algorand and are actively leveraging partnership with Algorand.
One of them is Circle. Circle is a world-scale financial firm that will let you utilize the power of stablecoins for payments whether as a consumer or as a business. Today, USDC is top of the ranks in full-reserve stablecoin, having over $3 billion in circulation.
These use-cases demonstrate Algorand’s position in transforming the face and future of finance by developing innovations that eliminate resistance from exchange of value.
The future holds awesome promises for payments. Meaningful collaborations such as that of the Official Monetary & Financial Institutions Forum with Digital Monetary Institute, have been fostered leading to regulators, technologists, policy-makers and financiers coming together to discover opportunities for digital finances and possible obstacles.
Written by Ubong Ephraim, Algorand Ambassador
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