Binance Pay Grows Popular in Africa, Eurasia, and Eastern Europe
• Binance Pay is a cryptocurrency-based payments service that has attracted over 30 million users in African, Asian and Eastern European countries.
• A strategic partnership with WooCommerce allows customers to make payments with 70 different tokens, while a partnership with aggregator enables users to book car-hailing services such as Uber, Bolt and Grab.
• Binance Pay plans to work alongside industry participants rather than compete against them and may explore becoming an on-ramp for crypto-to-fiat services like PayPal.
Growing Interest in Africa, Eurasia and Eastern Europe
Binance’s payment arm, Binance Pay, has seen growing interest from African, Asian and Eastern European countries as they bridge cryptocurrencies as a payment source for goods and services. The payments service was launched in 2021 and has already attracted over 30 million users in the regions mentioned.
Strategic Partnership with WooCommerce
Binance Pay has also entered into a strategic partnership with WooCommerce which will expand its reach even further. This e-commerce plugin is used by 40% of global websites allowing cryptocurrency users to make payments using 70 different tokens. In addition to this, merchants that use WooCommerce are now able to accept cryptocurrency payments through Binance Pay’s rail system.
Car Hailing Services
Binance Pay enables its user base in Africa, South Asia and Eurasian countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to pay for car-hailing services such as Uber, Bolt and Grab through an integration with an aggregator. The front end of the service allows customers to book rides without having to direct them to any other car-hailing app.
Competition or Partnerships?
When asked about whether Binance Pay envisioned itself as a competitor to the likes of PayPal in the future, Pakning Luk – regional business development lead at Binance – said that the service was more focused on building partnerships and working alongside other industry participants rather than entering into competition with them. There were also suggestions that it could become an onramp for crypto-to-fiat services like PayPal; however nothing concrete has been decided yet.
Presence In Ukraine
Before the outbreak of conflict between Russia and Ukraine last year, Binance had already established two merchant partnerships in Ukraine; Varus supermarket chain & WOG gas station chain. These two partnerships enabled citizens living there access goods & services via cryptocurrency thanks to BinancePay’s rail system
