Bitwala, a blockchain company based in Germany, has unveiled a new application which will enable European residents to easily open a German bank account through their smartphones. Interestingly, this bank account will have an integrated Bitcoin (BTC) wallet. The roll-out was officially announced in the previous week by the blockchain firm.
Providing insights on the move, Bitwala stated that the consumers in all the 31 nations of the EEA (European Economic Area) would be able to access the perks of having a German bank account which comes with Bitcoin buying and selling abilities. While the company will be charging one percent fee on trading; the accounts, as well as the debit cards, will remain free. Continuing further, the firm disclosed that customers can directly cancel lost cards on the application itself.
The EEA nations where Bitwala consumers can launch BTC banking are Croatia, Austria, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Greece, Iceland, Germany, France, Republic of Cyprus, Ireland, Lithuania, Malta, Hungary, Luxembourg, Italy, Netherlands, Estonia, Norway, Romania, Slovenia, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, Portugal, Latvia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Liechtenstein.
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As per the reports, solarisBank is hosting Bitwala’s accounts. For those left wondering, solarisBank is a fintech firm based in Berlin that possesses an authorized German banking license. The firm comes under the supervision of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).
Bitwala’s CTO (Chief Technical Officer) and Co-Founder, Benjamin Jones, also came forward to share his views on this new development. Jones said that their developers have worked hard for months for offering consumers the best possible app experience. He also exclaims how proud they are on having successfully reduced the new customer onboarding time. In fact, the onboarding process has been integrated directly into the application. Once a user has an account, their everyday banking activities can be seamlessly integrated – whether in Euro or Bitcoin – into their daily life, added Jones.
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Divulging more details about the app, Christoph Iwaniez who works at Bitwala as the Chief Financial Officer said that the application is focussing attention on security. He says that users’ Bitcoins are directly booked through a multi-signature wallet on the blockchain with Bitwala. That means hacking Bitwala is “as useless as breaking the blockchain itself.” Explaining further, Iwaniez said that the customers can completely control their BTC wallets at any given time. Hence, it is the most secure way of buying, selling, and storing BTC – even on the smartphone.
