Even doing something as simple as paying a water or gas bill can be very time consuming and stressful for the unbanked, especially if the region they live in is politically unstable. To illustrate, a person without a bank account would typically pay a utility bill in a number of ways:
They could pay for their bill by sending a money order, or;
They may wait in a large queue to pay their bill with cash, or;
They could pay their bill via a utility company app, but the majority of utility companies operating in developing nations don’t have apps to help pay bills like those in the developed world. This makes it virtually impossible for people living in a nation that’s still developing to pay bills
The unbanked concept can be hard to grasp for technologically developed countries like the US, Canada, UK and South Korea. But if you were to take a step back and try to imagine what it could be like to “live without a bank account,” how different would your life be?
Now imagine what it would be like to pay bills every month without a bank account. If you have the luxury of living in a country that’s developed, going from having “a bank account” to “not having one” would be like going back to the stone age. This is because situations like having a bank account are a normal, ongoing occurrence in the developed world.
There is an interesting project on the horizon called Treon, Treon provides a direct transfer of value, from customer to business, without the need to wait for transactions to clear with banks or third parties.
Read the whole article here: https://bitcoinist.com/crypto-potential-for-1-7-million-unbanked-adults/
Are blockchain and cryptocurrency-based solutions like Treon the answer to providing basic financial services to the world’s unbanked population?