Anycoin Direct, an instant buying and selling platform for cryptocurrencies, announced it had raised €500,000 in funding, and had partnered with Salt Technology to expand its services to Canada.
The private investment of €500,000 allowed Anycoin Direct to expand its business outside of Europe and reach Canada, the company stated in an announcement. Anycoin Direct had partnered with San Francisco-based Salt Technology, Inc., to provide Interac Online payments services to its Canadian users.
Vice-President Business Development at Salt Technology, Inc., Jim Brown, commented in an announcement:
"SALT is very excited about the launch of Anycoin Direct in the Canadian market, their attention to security and the end-user experience aligns well to our belief in what will make a successful customer purchase interaction."
Salt Technology, Inc., a cloud-based mobile payments platform, counts among its clients leading cryptocurrencies exchanges, including Canadians Cavirtex, QuadrigaCX, and Vault of Satoshi, which announced its closure earlier this month due to founders' other priorities.
Anycoin Direct's newly announced partnership with Salt Technology Inc. allows Canadians to purchase cryptocurrencies using the payment method Interac Online, a service enabling customers to pay for goods and services over the Internet using funds directly from their bank accounts, without the need of sharing any financial information.
Similar to iDEAL in the Netherlands, Giropay in Germany, and Secure Vault Payments in the United States, Interac Online is an Online Banking ePayments service, and a brand of Interact Association.
Interac essentially serves as the Canadian debit card system, while traditional card providers Visa and MasterCard, only provide credit cards in Canada.
Currently, financial institutions offering Interac Online include four of the largest Canadian banks BMO Bank of Montreal, Scotiabank, TD Canada Trust and RBC Royal Bank, as well as Envision Financial and Libro Credit Union.
Launched in April 2013 in the Netherlands, Anycoin Direct, formerly Bitplaats, expanded in January 2014 in Belgium with payment method Bancontact/Mistercash. In July, the company changed its name to Anycoin Direct and expanded to the wider European continent with the addition of SEPA, Sofort Banking, MyBank, Giropay and Online Bank Transfer.
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Focusing on speed and ease of use, Anycoin Direct allows users to buy and receive cryptocurrencies within 5 minutes, the company said. Co-founder of Anycoin Direct Lennert Vlemmings, stated:
"We have a long way to go to make Bitcoin available to everyone in the world. People need an easy and trusted way to buy bitcoin, using local payment methods that they trust."
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