Bitsa teams up with Sixth Continent: interview with Antonio Palacio
We are very pleased to announce publicly that Bitsa has concluded a precious agreement with the great group of purchases Sixth Continent, the Italian company that has revolutionized the way to buy online worldwide.
This renowned Social Commerce platform, since 10 years completely transforms the way of buying, allowing its users to increase their purchasing power in a very simple way.
In Sixthcontinent, professionals and shops get in touch with private individuals to get both a mutual advantage. The shops promote their activity by issuing gift cards at a very discounted price. On the other hand, users benefit from the purchase of cheques and gift cards with large discounts.
From now on, all Bitsa customers can simplify the payment process on this innovative platform through Bitsa Pay. This development allows any customer to make their purchases on Sixth Continent in a safer and at a really amazing speed.
What is Bitsa Pay?
Bitsa Pay is an innovative service, created by our engineers that will give you the opportunity to buy in hundreds of stores in seconds, and without the need to expose your card data.
This new payment method allows you to use your Bitsa card via your mobile phone camera. To pay, the only thing you need to do is scan a QR code generated by Sixth Continent.
This allows you to simplify any payment procedure, saving time, costs, minimizing security risks and protecting your personal data.
To understand the implications of this agreement and the integration between Bitsa and Sixth Continent, we spoke with the General Manager and Technical Director of Bitsa, Antonio Palacio.
1. What does it mean for Bitsa to reach an agreement of this magnitude?
For us to reach this agreement with Sixth Continent for the launch of Bitsa Pay is a pride. It allows us to place our product directly with the leader of online gift card sales, and start with a very important customer base.
2. What is the purpose of developing Bitsa Pay?
Bitsa Pay has the main purpose of offering merchants a safer, cheaper and instant payment system. Paper fraud increases every day with the impact this has on many shops.
Bitsa Pay allows shops and customers greater flexibility and convenience in making transactions.
3. Are you going to extend Bitsa Pay to other stores?
Absolutely. The goal is to democratize and expand it, so that all stores that join Bitsa Pay can benefit from its advantages.
4. What other developments is Bitsa currently working on?
We have just introduced Lightning Network for crypto-active top-ups, which represents an important achievement in democratizing micropayments, due to their speed and reduced costs. Also, our engineers are working on some further development, but we are in too early a stage, we hope to surprise our customers during the year.
5. Do you think the Covid-19 pandemic affected the way users buy?
Personally I believe that consumption habits have been constantly evolving for some years with a continuous growth of online purchases, but undoubtedly COVID-19 has accelerated this evolution. The data shows how digital purchases have exploded but also, as in many crises, has brought a new more responsible vision of the consumer, attracted by different motivations, social or healthy.
6. Do you think users care enough about the use of their data on the internet?
I think more and more. Cases of leaking personal data or theft of personal files made a lot of noise and turned on the alarm. Surely there is still a lot to do and, above all, to be able to change the habits of people who use the Internet without paying much attention to the risks involved. I think that the new generations are much more careful to create and protect their data on the Internet.
In this sense we also believe that the development of Bitsa Pay contributes to protect that privacy, allowing our users to buy without exposing the data of their cards.
7. Are we beginning to see changes in the purchasing behaviour of the new generations?
Young people arrive earlier and earlier in consumption, attracted by marketing and advertising increasingly adapted to each target audience. Furthermore, communication today is based on multiple media both through television channels for all ages, media such as tablets or phones and with an infinite number of products. It is clear that our society has a strong component that encourages consumers and more and more young people.
8. How would you sum up Bitsa’s 2020? What are the 2021 targets?
For us 2020 has been a very important year, we have been able to evolve our product thanks to the work done by all the groups working daily in Bitsa. Our main goal for 2021 is to get our license, which will allow us to grow as an entity and be able to offer better service to our customers.
Always respecting our vision to continuously improve our product to increase our market share and give greater satisfaction to all our customers.