Kelly Robertson
There is a new way to put your bitcoins to good use in South Africa, with company called Fines4U now accepting bitcoin payments for traffic fines.
Reportedly, the decision by Fines4U’s owner Cornelia van Niekerk has been sparked by the recent massive mainstream drive of Bitcoin, sparking many businesses into action to adopt.
Said company operates as an intermediary that helps companies and individuals pay their outstanding fines, accepting the money for the fine and making the payment to the government agency involved. Van Niekerk says she manages traffic fines for around 500 companies and about 8,000 individuals.
Untraditional way of accepting Bitcoin payments
Fines4U is taking an untraditional approach to accepting Bitcoin payments. Rather than converting the amount of Bitcoins to the fiat currency at the time of transaction, Van Niekerk actually wants to use this method to accumulate Bitcoin without direct investment.
She decided to add the Bitcoin payments option after entering the market in her personal capacity in June; and this move could help her get more bitcoins in shorter amount of time.
So far, things are working for Fines4U, with Van Niekerk saying that the response was overwhelming. However, she added that it’s not like she saw a flood of payments in Bitcoin, but more a thirst for knowledge from her clients.
“I deal with many clients on a daily basis, many of whom are big businesses,” Van Niekerk said. “Suddenly everybody wants to get more information from me about Bitcoin.”
Bitcoin is considered an asset
With Bitcoin’s price surpassing the $10,000 mark, more and more people are considering it an asset, rather than a currency. There was a time when people bought their coffee with bitcoins, and today — most of them use the cryptocurrency as a store of value, hoping that it will keep growing.
Van Niekerk’s plan fits into that narrative; she will accept Bitcoin, store it as an asset, and pay the fines as part of her service with the local currency taken from the business.
And guess what — she’s not the only one taking this route. One doctor from South Africa has also been accepting Bitcoin for his services, and then depositing the money from his own pocket into the business. He is not actively promote such payment option, and has had only four to five clients paying him in Bitcoin.
In fact, one could argue that Bitcoin as a payment method is dying.
“Most people see it more as an asset class and if you really believe it’s an asset, you think it might be worth more in future, you don’t want to dispose of it,” Werner van Rooyen from South African exchange Luno explained.
We tend to agree with that statement, and that’s why we suggest everyone to diversify their cryptocurrency portfolio, using Bitcoin to store value and other tokens to pay for everyday goods. That’s how we roll.
