CoinCorner partners with Bitnob to facilitate cross-border transactions from UK and Europe to Africa

In a partnership with Bitnob, CoinCorner customers can now “Send Globally” from the UK and Europe to Africa, using Bitcoin and the Lightning Network.

Send Globally will allow millions of people with British pound (GBP) or Euro (EUR) to transfer funds freely and instantly to Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana via the Bitcoin Lightning Network, starting with GBP or EUR and ending with Nigerian naira (NGN), Kenyan shilling (KES) or Ghanaian cedi (GHS) in a local bank account or mobile money wallet.

When a CoinCorner customer uses Send Globally, their pounds will be automatically converted into Bitcoin (BTC) and sent via the Lightning Network. Once the BTC is received at Bitnob, it will be instantly converted into the local currency – NGN, KES or GHS – and the recipient will receive the funds straight into their bank account or mobile money wallet.

Every year, approximately £12 billion is remitted from the UK and Europe to Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana, according to World Bank Open Data (1).

CoinCorner CEO, Danny Scott, said, “The remittance market is a huge opportunity for Bitcoin. The borderless nature of Bitcoin has always made it a great tool for sending money around the world, but now with the Lightning Network, sending Bitcoin is instant and very low cost.
By partnering with Bitnob to provide a seamless cross-border experience using Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, we hope to remove some of the friction and cost that customers experience when using traditional FX and money remittance companies.”

“For us at Bitnob, this is another leap forward in economic empowerment for Africans. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most expensive region to send money to, where sending $200 costs an average of 8.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020 according to the World Bank (2). Bitnob is all about changing the status quo; allow cross border payment to happen instantly and at no fees into your local bank account or mobile money wallet. Bitcoin is powering the future of money and this partnership highlights a strong use case of what the future will look like.” says Bernard Parah, CEO Bitnob.