RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Two international fintechs linked to the crypto sector – one from New Zealand and one from Estonia – announced this week that they would soon land in Brazil and promise to stimulate the sector in the country.
The first is Easy Crypto, New Zealand’s largest exchange, which is expanding and arrives in the country on September 7, after establishing a presence in Australia, Nigeria, and South Africa. Founded in early 2018 in New Zealand, Easy Crypto went through an extensive testing period in Brazil before announcing its operations.
André Sprone, Director of Easy Crypto Brazil, talked to Cointelegraph about the importance of the country in the crypto scene: “Practically all international exchanges have their eyes on Brazil in some way. It’s a huge market and still little explored. Many Brazilians are still unaware of crypto assets, but this scenario is changing rapidly”.
André says that Easy Crypto Brasil intends to assume that the Brazilian market is quite different and that an international company must adapt to local demands.
“The Brazilian market is particular, so we can’t replicate here the model we use elsewhere. For example, local habits and technologies, such as PIX itself, completely change how we should serve customers to offer the best experience possible. Having a local team that lives the Brazilian way of life is very important. We’re getting ready to show that, despite our international origins, Easy Crypto Brasil’s commitment is to Brazilians.”
Easy Crypto comes to rival giants in the sector that have been established for some time in the country, such as Mercado Bitcoin, the first unicorn of the cryptocurrency sector in Brazil. Other competitors are the Chinese Binance and NovaDAX, the Mexican Bitso, and the Brazilian BitcoinTrade and Foxbit, among many others. With more competition in the market, the tendency is that Brazilian consumers will benefit.
PAYMENT PROCESSING SOLUTIONS
A year ago Estonian startup Mercuryo.io, an Estonian startup providing cryptocurrency payment processing solutions, has closed a €2.5 million funding round. The seed round was led by Target Global, as reported by FinSMEs.
Founded in 2018, Mercuryo.io is described as an ecosystem of cryptocurrency payment solutions. It enables global businesses to send and receive payments for goods and services using cryptocurrencies, via its cross-border payments network.
Led by co-founders Petr Kozyakov, Greg Waisman, and Alexander Vasiliev, the team is spread between Tallinn and London, bringing both eastern and western European markets.
The startup’s mission is to make cryptocurrencies more accessible, or as they explain, to bring cryptocurrencies into our daily lives and allow us to handle our crypto transactions casually. So how does it do this?
The startup offers a range of options, including virtual accounts, business payments, remittance processing, and mass payouts, no matter the local payment methods or currency.
Brazil will represent the beginning of Mercuryo’s operations in Latin America. The global payments infrastructure company arrives to offer cryptocurrency to cryptocurrency transfer solutions to local businesses.
Mercuryo’s tools for the cryptocurrency market allow businesses to integrate the “widget” in a simple way, providing customers with the ability to buy crypto with legal tender and sell crypto and receive the currency of interest, including the Real.
The application also enables Brazilian businesses to work with cryptocurrencies as payment for their products and services. This simple “plug and play” solution can be adapted to receive both cryptos and fiat currency.
Today, the company says that there are already more than 1.4 million users worldwide using the B2C and B2B2C products through more than 200 B2B partners that employ Mercuryo’s solutions.
The choice of Brazil is not by chance. Latin American countries are among the top 20 in terms of digital currency adoption by 2021. And Brazil, specifically, is a large market, with about 700 cryptocurrency companies.
Petr Kozyakov, co-founder and CEO of Mercuryo said, “Latin American fintechs are booming, and Brazil is particularly a market worth investing in. Brazilian banks have one of the highest profit margins in the world. As a solution that unites the worlds of official and digital currencies, Mercuryo sees this as the ideal time to enter the country.”