Digital Money

Over the last decade, the way we transfer value has been steadily catching up with the way we transfer information. Today, money moves electronically, within seconds, all around the globe. While financial institutions have been building proprietary payment rails that facilitate the movement of funds within their closed systems, open-sourced cryptographic ledgers on decentralized blockchains have emerged alongside the establishment and promise a faster, more secure, programmable and inclusive way to transfer value within open payment systems accessible to everyone.

For the most part, these two forms of storing and moving value have developed separately and are not interoperable. On one hand, banks and financial institutions recognize the advantages of digital currencies in terms of speed and cost-saving but are wary against losing control to a technology that is not governed by them directly. Most blockchains provide a level of transparency banking clients might not be comfortable with and financial institutions are overall unsure about how to fit digital currencies into their regulatory environments . They experiment with new technology, but overwhelmingly prefer to stay within the comfort of their own walled gardens for the time being.

On the other hand, fin-tech startups, many technology enthusiasts and cryptocurrency developers promote the philosophy of open payment systems and exercising full control over funds without a higher power being able to lock anyone out. Novel blockchains move money over the internet at the same speed email moves information, programmatically, following well-defined protocols at almost no cost. Blockchain developers are also increasingly sensitive towards traditional financial system concerns such as privacy of transactions. As such, many of them are working towards inclusive solutions in their race for adoption.

Bridging The Gap

Online merchants are facing a dilemma. They see technological advantages of new digital currencies and realize how they're a natural extension to the internet of information. They recognize the opportunity of their growing popularity, particularly amongst younger audiences, yet, they are mostly unable to capitalize on digital currencies even when they want to. Their existing banking relations and regulatory frameworks of the jurisdictions they operate in make it prohibitive or fairly complicated to adopt digital currencies as a payment method for their customers, despite their many advantages.

A company's balance sheet, financial statement, audit, its invoices, purchase orders and literally every aspect of its accounting is usually denominated in traditional currencies, such as USD, EUR or NGN. Even if online businesses were to jump the hoops and integrate with popular blockchains, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Litecoin, they would still face the challenge of liquidating digital funds into their bank accounts, while staying compliant and keeping clean books.

COINQVEST payment processing for online merchants bridges the gap between modern cryptocurrencies and traditional payments. It provides enterprises with digital currency checkouts that automatically go from Bitcoin to your bank account, in minutes.

From Bitcoin to Bank Account

COINQVEST is built with the Stellar Network at its core, a distributed ledger technology that is inclusive of new digital currencies as well traditional fiat currencies. Modern and classic funds are represented as tokens on the network, which move at a fast speed and can be seamlessly exchanged with one another.

COINQVEST merchants accept Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin XRP or Stellar Lumens while settling directly to their bank account and keeping a balance sheet in a currency that their accounting systems are compatible with, their accountants understand and their tax authorities are able to work with.

COINQVEST provides a suite of APIs for online merchants. It includes tools to create charges and checkouts, capture digital currency payments, and automatically convert incoming funds into USD, EUR or NGN fiat currency tokens. In turn, these tokens can be automatically withdrawn to bank accounts, also via the use of our APIs. Along the way, COINQVEST helps online merchants to associate customer information with payments and provides automated invoicing, extensive transaction history, and analytics as well as accounting tools to help them stay compliant.

It only takes minutes

COINQVEST partnered with Cowrie to bring real-time settlement from Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, XRP, XLM and any asset on the Stellar Network to Nigerian bank accounts, in minutes. Cowrie works with the Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement System and provides stunningly fast deposit times.

Local online merchants can now use COINQVEST to accept digital currency payments from all over the world and instantly settle traditional NGN into their bank accounts, while avoiding any additional overhead and keeping their books compliant. The process is as simple as creating a programmatic checkout in COINQVEST, awaiting payment and issuing an automated withdrawal request.

Merchants in the Euro zone can select Tempo, a regulated financial institution from Paris to process settlements in EUR, while American merchants can opt for AnchorUSD to process payments. The withdrawal process is the same as above, but with longer settlement times than above (usually a day or two).

Of course, merchants that prefer to stay strictly crypto can elect to simply keep the currency sent by their customers or decide to convert received funds into their favorite digital asset, such as Bitcoin or Stellar Lumens (XLM).

Entities that bring assets, such as fiat or digital currencies, on and off the Stellar Network are referred to as asset issuers (or "anchors"). As new asset issuers emerge for other regions of the world and more different types of cryptocurrencies are tethered onto Stellar, they are vetted by the COINQVEST team and added to the platform as additional payment and settlement options in no time. An updated list of available blockchain and fiat currency integrations can be found here.

Read more about our key features or get started with the COINQVEST Merchant API right here.