2021-4-15 17:28 |
AXA, the second-largest insurance company in Europe, has started accepting BTC as payment through a partnership with Bitcoin Suisse. The firm unveiled this news through a blog post on April 15, noting that this move has seen it become Switzerland’s first all-lines insurer to accept payments in crypto. Reportedly, the company decided to embark on this path as part of its digital future and as a response to the increasing demand for additional payment alternatives from its clients.
According to the blog post, this integration is the fruit of research that started at the end of 2019, where the company asked clients aged between 18 and 55 to share their thoughts on crypto. At the time, a third of the respondents admitted that they either owned or were interested in cryptocurrencies. AXA went on to note that the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic expedited the digital transformation by fueling the adoption of cryptocurrencies.
Per AXA, the BTC payment option will be available to its private clients starting this month. It is only accepting BTC as payment for all non-life product premiums, with hopes that regulatory amendments will let it include other products in the future. All that users need to settle their bills in BTC is the reference number, the amount due, and a BTC wallet.
Leveraging BTC to simplify paymentsAXA seeks to embed the new payment method on bills it sends by email in the future. By doing so, the company will let its customers pay in BTC by visiting https://invoice.inapay.ch/axa to make transfers. This process would be simple and intuitive seeing as all a user will need to do is enter the reference number and amount and confirm their entry. Bitcoin Suisse would then receive the BTC and convert the funds into Swiss francs.
Explaining how the system will determine how much BTC a user needs to pay, the company noted that the amount a customer owes will be calculated into an equivalent sum in BTC. However, this exchange rate will remain valid for a specified amount of time. During this window, the client will not bear any exchange rate risk. Additionally, AXA will not charge the users any special fees while making transactions in BTC.
At the moment, AXA is only accepting BTC. According to the blog post, the company seeks to get some experience with BTC before deciding whether to add more cryptocurrencies.
The post Leading Swiss insurer AXA starts accepting payments in Bitcoin (BTC) appeared first on Invezz.
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