Coinify Secures ‘Stronger Presence’ in the Balkan Region with Two New Partnerships

Danish bitcoin startup Coinify, has signed two new partnerships with payment service providers Webteh from Croatia and EuroPayment Services from Romania.

The two deals are part of Coinify’s plans to strengthen its presence in Southeast Europe by teaming up with large payment service providers to enable thousands of merchants to start accepting bitcoin all at once.

“Countries in southeastern Europe are often referred to as frontier markets,” Mark Højgaard, CEO of Coinify, said in a statement. “We see them as the upcoming high growth area that we want to be part of.”

“Growth in economy and increasing technology adoption positively influence the growth in online services,” Højgaard said. “In this momentum, as more businesses in southeastern Europe are going online, we see perfect timing and great potential in these deals.”

Narcis Gečević, Partner at Webteh and Business Developer at Lupon Ventures, said that his company has “hundreds of merchants in the Balkan region” that are “very positive about the fact that [Webteh implements] digital currencies among payment options.”

Gečević further indicated that Lupon Ventures, an investment group that backs some 10 technology and online startups, was always looking for local companies that act as “first movers” to “set the trends and educate.”

“I can see a great potential in the digital currency adoption among some of these companies and the market as general,” Gečević said.

EuroPayment Services on the other hand, is the largest payment service provider in Romania with over 1,800 active merchants.

Commenting on the new partnership, Răzvan Mânzu, Sales Manager at EuroPayment Services, said that he was “thrilled about the opportunity,” adding that Romania is becoming an increasingly attractive market for digital currency.

“We have discovered a very interesting community of Bitcoiners in Romania that is constantly growing,” Mânzu said.

Mihai Manoliu, Regional Manager for Coinify, confirmed Mânzu’s observation, indicating that he has met many local payment service providers interested in both Coinify’s bitcoin payment gateway and trading platform.

“The companies acting in tourism, ticketing and even the biggest service providers are looking for new payment options for their customers,” Manoliu said.

Founded in March 2014, Copenhagen-based Coinify has been building a full stack bitcoin solution. Along with providing customers with a bitcoin trading platform, the company has enabled some 10,000+ merchants around the world to accept bitcoin as a payment method.

Last month, Coinify signed a deal with Hello Markets, a company that provides custom-made white label platforms for the online trading market, to facilitate bitcoin payments between brokers and their clients.

Hello Markets, which has offices in Hong Kong, Cyprus and London, views the partnership as a strategy to tap into the Asian market, especially China, which it says is particularly fond of bitcoin.

For Coinify, the agreement is a win-win scenario as it marks the company’s first step into an expansion in the Asian continent, a spokesperson told CoinJournal in an email communication.