1 CommentAfter San Francisco taxis started advertising Bitcoin and its potential, now there’s a British taxi firm that accepts cryptocurrency as a payment. You can find this innovative company in Cumbria, a county in North West England.
The Carlisle-based Cumbria Cabs started accepting virtual coins just a few weeks ago, after opening a merchant account through the payment processor Bitpay. According to the company, the lower transaction fees and the reduced risk of fraud appealed to the taxi firm’s business model. The payment can be easily done in the cab, just by simply scanning a QR code with the customer’s smartphone.
Cumbria Cabs’ owner, Alistair Nixon, says that he “was attracted by the very low charges for sending and receiving payments when compared to credit cards, PayPal and other online payments. With Carlisle being the furthest city in the UK from any international airport, Cumbria Cabs completes many long journeys to and from airports”.
“This combined with a high number of business travellers as well meant Bitcoin seemed an efficient solution to paying. One of the main benefits for us is the option to accept payments from any currency and from any country in the world. This is great for people flying into the UK and wishing to book an airport transfer with us”, he adds.
Nixon also states that “when business owners realise that they can take bookings and payments from anywhere in the world, in any currency, with a very small transaction charge and fraud risk they will surely want to have that option”.
As far as the company owner knows, Cumbria Cabs is the first and only company in Cumbria to accept Bitcoin: “I know of one other taxi company in the UK that accepts Bitcoins but lots of businesses accept them already. You can buy a cup of coffee or pay for a cab with Bitcoin in the USA so why not in Cumbria?”.
Via cumberlandnews.co.uk
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