An estimated 30 million Africans in diaspora send home close to $40 billion dollars to their loved ones, every year.Out of that huge amount of money, $1.4 billion goes to the usual suspects – legacy money transfer services like MoneyGram, Western Union – as service charge.Bitcoin technology, on the other hand, offers a faster and cheaper option of transferring money internationally.Cash remittance services at cheaper rates is the perfect ingredient for a disruption of the money transfer ecosystem in Africa.Below are some of the startups leading the charge.Igot This Australian bitcoin exchange (which started in 2013) recently entered into the Kenyan market with the acquisition of Tagpesa (a local Startup in Kenya).Igot offers a 1% transaction fee (after merchants have exceeded $1 million in bitcoin payments) and offers remittances in the local currency which can be collected from a local bank or through  an M-Pesa account.The CEO is Rick Day.BitPesa Founded in 2013 by Bob Aman, Charlene Chen, Amy Ludlum and Elizabeth Rossiello, BitPesa was the first Bitcoin remittance service in Africa.

Based in Nairobi, BitPesa offers remittances in the local currency, with a catch – withdrawals can only be made through the mobile wallet options in Kenya i.e.bitcoin knotsM-Pesa, Tigo, Orange, Airtel, or Yu.bitcoin tax haven of the futureBitPesa charges a 3% transaction fee on any Bitcoin transactions through their website.coin hunter bitcoinCurrently only serving Kenya and Tanzania.bitcoin exchange in ghanaBitFinance BitFinance was founded in 2014 by Tawanda Kembo and Verengai Mabika and recently went through the Savannah Fund accelerator program.maria jones bitcoinThe Zimbabwe-based company allows the buying and selling of Bitcoins using mobile money or your bank account through their BitcoinFundi service.maria jones bitcoin

Their other service is the CryptoCounter, an ATM that allows you to exchange bitcoin for fiat and vice versa.It also comes with an API that allows 3rd party developers to build Bitcoin apps.ICE3X Pronounced as ‘Icecubed X’, the South African-based bitcoin exchange was founded by Gareth Gobbler and launched into the Nigerian digital payment ecosystem this year.ICE3X in partnership with VoguePay, allows Nigerians to buy and sell bitcoins using Naira directly from their existing VoguePay wallets.Currencies that can be traded in are the Rand and Naira.It also offers users trading and market data from other leading exchanges globally, so customers are aware of movements in the market.BitStake The most recent startup on this list, BitStake formally launched on March 31.This Nigerian startup charges 1% on all transfers.That’s the lowest on this list.It also offers other services like a full bitcoin/Naira exchange, and a bitcoin lending platform.Founded by David Ajayi, Alexander Christian and Ray Carlo Danetti.

In Memoriam The following services are no longer in operation.But they had a good run, while it lasted.Kitiwa The Ghanaian bitcoin exchange allowed its customers to buy bitcoins and make online payments and also convert Ghana cedis into bitcoin.It was founded by Maluwi Adzoe, Nikunj Handa, Falk Benke and Emmanuel Quartey in 2013.BeamRemit Beamremit converted bitcoins sent from the UK to Ghana’s cedi and withdrawals could be made through MTN mobile money services.Founded by Nikunj Handa and Falk Benke in 2014, Beam charged 3% remittance fee compared to Moneygram and Western Union, its major competitors, who currently charge 4% upwards on their remittance services.Photo Credit: microsiervos via Compfight ccPosted by on February 10 2017 Bitland is a startup that aims to bring credible land title registry by the use of blockchain.It hopes to therefore alleviate issues of fraud and forged land titles.This is a one of a kind implementation of the technology in Africa and Bitland is currently working with the Ghanaian government.

Narigamba Mwinsuubo started the technology initiative in 2014 and was joined with Chris Bates as Chief Security Officer in 2015.According to Bates the launch of the company was inspired by economist Hernando De Soto’s belief that society can only accumulate wealth if it has protection over its land.Land issues across Africa cannot be underestimated.They have been the biggest source of fights and court cases due to unreliable data on who owns land.These issues trace back to the end of colonialism where the scramble for ancestral land became intense.In Kenya, efforts to have the land registry digitised are ongoing after years of land fraud, duplicate land ownership certificates and even in extreme cases land clashes.Bates, who is based in Indiana, US, states that the situation is the same in Ghana and rest of the continent.“In Ghana there is a major issue with land title registry.It’s one of the worst in the sense of there are areas where the government has no real registry.The chiefs are in control of most of the land.” He explains that the local chiefs have knowledge on who owns which piece of land but that doesn’t serve as good protection since they could be influenced to change their mind.

“We thought that if there could be a blockchain based registry it would help develop the country and increase the wealth in regions that have chiefs controlling most of the land or there is no real protection of the titles from the government,” he tells IDG Connect.Bates believes that blockchain could be the perfect solution to such problems.“Blockchain takes one fact and uses a protocol of computer consensus to confirm that the fact exists.Whatever that fact is, whether transfer of money or property, all that blockchain is doing is confirming that that fact exists,” he explains.Blockchain is more than just having a database since conventional databases can be changed fraudulently and are prone to untracked mistakes.Bates adds that, “While there is one point of entry of every data, the data is being confirmed by the entire network because the network is spreading around the responsibility, that means whatever they agree upon is a fact.” Even though it is a noble idea, the introduction of the system to government bodies is a painstaking business.

“We started to try and get more government cooperation and involvement in the process.You can’t have these types of solutions working unless governments accept them and they are part of the process,” Bates says.“They [government] weren’t really perceptive at first but a lot of that was because the rhetoric surrounding it was anti-government.In the early days of blockchain you heard people say that blockchain was going to replace government and its functioning processes.And now that we know that is not true we can now start to look at real applications where the technology can be used,” Bates says.Now that there is more practical use of the technology the government seems to be more receptive, according to Bates.The development of the country’s infrastructure is the foundation of having robust systems that are reliable and include everyone in the country.“Our protocol is more than just on a digital registry.It’s educating people on the importance on the technology and the benefits of having a working registry.

Implementing physical structures that can support these digital registries,” Bates adds.“You can’t have a digital registry where there is no internet.And you can’t have internet where there is no electricity.We have to address physical infrastructure issues and education in order to make the technology useful.We are more than just a software protocol.” The political will for blockchain in Africa To an extent there needs to be a political will to interrogate and implement blockchain in government processes.In Kenya, the government stand against Bitcoin and cryptocurrency made it harder for BitPesa, a Bitcoin exchange in Kenya to penetrate the market.The company now has concentrated its efforts in Nigeria where their market is growing larger than in Kenya.This underlines the importance of having government support in adopting new technology that touches on national assets.“When you have a government that is mostly the previous generation, that has very little experience in blockchain technology or even internet, they are not using it as much as the young people,” Bates says.

Even so, a slow approach to implementation could help African governments in employing blockchain.“The system has to be secure from end to end for the technology to be useful – until we get to that point it’s not really ready for implementation.So the government not rushing to implement it has given time for the technologies to get better.By the time the governments come around, the technology would have gone through so many iterations that it will be ready for prime adoption,” he adds.But laws in most governments should also encompass new technologies such as blockchain to avoid fraud in data entry, making the system free of faults.Ultimately blockchain can enable money laundering and fraud if it is not properly monitored.There has to be some access control point to verify that the people in the system are legitimate.That is the only real legislation that can be effectively implemented without stifling the technology.“I don’t think there can be an all-encompassing law but it will have to start with examples [like] anti-laundering laws and know your customers standards that have been set by banks,” Bates says.