Bitwala, a German-based bitcoin exchange and payment company, today announced that only weeks after their official launch, users have already traded a total of EUR 1 million worth of bitcoin.
Bitwala is the only banking service presently active in the European Economic Area (EEA = E.U., EFTA, Switzerland) offering a free current account with a built-in bitcoin wallet.
As many as 30 EEA countries are already represented in Bitwala’s growing user base. Only about half of the growing customer base resides in Germany. The top-5 countries outside of Germany are Austria, the U.K., Switzerland, Italy, and France.
“We are proud that many of our customers are already using the service as their salary account. This is a strong signal that they trust us. We are presently building our mobile app in-house, which will be released shortly. It will help our customers to further integrate the use of cryptocurrencies into their day-to-day finances. With the elegantly designed Bitwala Debit Card, which presently comes with no extra fee when opening the account, customers can withdraw money or pay free of charge at 40 Million ATMs and shops worldwide.
Customers of Bitwala are onboarded during a short video identification process, which only takes a couple of minutes and can be done via a mobile device such as a smartphone. After verified, they can immediately access all benefits of a German bank account, including legal guarantees for Euro funds of up to EUR 100,000.
“Bitwala combines the best of both the traditional banking and the new blockchain world. That is exactly what our customers love about it. We are presently considering to further expand our offering by introducing accounts for businesses – this request is one of the top three frequently asked questions reaching our support team.”
Bitwala’s framework falls squarely within the legal requirements of German and European banking supervision, given that the current accounts are hosted by solarisBank, the Berlin-based tech platform with a German banking license. Therefore, Bitwala can guarantee to be fully compliant with Anti-Money Laundering or other protective restrictions that are standard procedure for any German bank.