Coinsecure and OKLink to launch Bitcoin based remittances to India

Delhi headquartered Bitcoin startup Coinsecure has partnered with OKLink, a money transfer network to facilitate money remittances to India from overseas.
Coinsecure’s co-founder Benson Samuel said that the service will be “faster and cheaper” because it uses block chain technology. The service transfer fee will go down from traditional 3-5% to only .5%, the company said.
The blockchain as an open public ledger of all Bitcoin transactions.
Indian users can send or receive funds in Bitcoin or Indian Rupees from countries around the world, the company said.
The average cost of sending money back to India was 6.78% in the first quarter of 2015.
India’s remittances market is mostly services by Money Transfer Operators (MTO) like Western Union,  Ria Money Transfer and Transfast. Banks and post offices also facilitate remittances. The space is regulated by India’s central bank and operators need to have a licence from the Reserve Bank of India.

The average cost of sending money back to India was 6.78% in the first quarter of 2015, according to a World Bank report. The government has been trying to increase competition in the market to bring down the cost of remittances.

In 2015, India received more than $69 bn in remittances, making it the largest country to receive money from workers abroad. Global remittances were at $581.6 bn in 2015.

Hong Kong based OKLink is backed by venture capital firms including Ceyuan Ventures, Mantra Capital, VenturesLab and Tim Draper among others.