Interview with Radoslav Albrecht of CEO of bit bond: “we strive for our loan volume to increase tenfold in 2018.”

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the most Blockchain companies have been established only in the past few months and now insert preparations – so bit bond in ICO. The Berlin Bitcoin startup has already for 2013 and also without ICO is providing global loans to grow. Bit bond has a BaFin license and can thus fully operate a global credit business. The peer-to-peer lending network enables a direct transaction between borrower and lender via Bitcoin. In particular small entrepreneurs in developing countries can, even without a regular bank account, take credit – quite the parent Blockchain narrative banking the unbanked . What has done anything lately at bit bond and looks like the future of Bitcoin we asked the CEO Radoslav Albrecht in the personal interview :

what has changed since our last interview (2016 ) everything done at bit bond?

There are two significant changes: end of 2016 we have received our BaFin license as investment intermediaries and as a result we could win 2017 institutional investor as lender in the first quarter. This is a significant change, because we can guarantee faster financing of credit requests this. 80% of total lending on bit bond now comprise the loans by the aforementioned institutional investors. Sum together, one can say that the cooperation with institutional investors has us enormous growth since 2017.

The crypto markets are currently extremely volatile. What affects the market environment and/or the Bitcoin class your business model?

There is no immediate effect, since we use Bitcoin only to the transfer of payment. Bitcoins are kept only for a very short period of time, which we can more or less eliminate the exchange-rate risk. But there is an indirect effect, namely the increase in transaction fees. This does bother us, is still within limits. We look around yet for alternatives, how we can use Bitcoin more efficiently, to keep the costs manageable.

You are in possession of a BaFin license. The setting of the BaFin and other regulators changed your opinion against crypto financial service providers in recent years? What do you think we can expect more of the BaFin in 2018?

A development is that the BaFin is increasingly professional and acquired more knowledge. Meanwhile, BaFin has several employees who are engaged in Blockchain and FinTech. I suspect that this will have a shorter processing time result for future licence applications in the field of Blockchain. Our licence application took back three years. I think if we were at the same point today as 2013, then we would need only a year. From what I get, similarly with other regulatory authorities, that they acquire more knowledge and become a professional in dealing with Blockchain company. This has shown itself in the hearing before the US Congress where there was quite benevolent votes in terms of Blockchain and Krytptowährungen. In 2018, we expect without wanting to hire to strong speculations that the BaFin will be more suited to the needs of the smaller and more agile companies.

What is currently the most to get you? What are the biggest challenges for you?

Our main goal is to grow, accordingly to create everything slows down this target us, what. There are no serious problems, however, it is always a triad of fundraising, our capacity to be able to expand, finance fundraising on the foreign capital side, more loans and recruiting or looking for the right people. These are normal operational processes. I see very positively in the future. It was glad that more and more the subject of Kryptowährungen and Blockchain people are interested in and develop technologies in the field and be reliable. Overall, I find, the industry is on a good way.

From which three countries most customers bit bond and what business are they located?

At the moment, the three largest countries for us are UK, Germany and France. The borrowers are first and foremost from the E-commerce sector, especially eBay and Amazon merchants. Restaurants need a financing are another major target group of us. We grow but also very strongly in Kenya, which is why this market soon to the third or fourth-largest market for us might be.

What expectations do you have of the Bitcoin scaling by the lightning network?

We have still not himself tested lightning, but hope that it will work. It would be beneficial, for example, we could install a lightning channel with trading partners, therefore faster and less expensive to process our transactions.

What goals do you have for 2018? 

We have tenfold 2017 our monthly loan volume, we would do so again this year. A complementary objective is to get more partnerships to enter. In Africa, we have reached a partnership with Jumia, this is the Amazon Africa Africa’s largest E-commerce marketplace, more or less. We want to put up such partnerships more.

Thank you for the interview!

BTC-ECHO