As cryptocurrency continues to gain ground in Nigeria and the world at large, it is also finding its way in everyday transactions between businesses and customers. It is gradually trickling down to “unofficial” goods and services like food.
A few businesses in Nigeria have adopted cryptocurrency as one of their modes of transaction. One of these businesses is OliliFood Delivery amongst others.
It is interesting to know that businesses are indeed taking the bold step to decentralize their transactions with customers. In an interview, Chiedu Chidubem Victor, the Head of ICT in correspondence with the Board of directors at OliliFood Delivery told CRESTHUB how crypto works in the business world.
What is OliliFood?
Olilifood Delivery is a food delivery startup that originated in 2019 and fully and launched in February 2020. The Nigerian startup company is based in Delta with the aim of expanding to other parts of Nigeria.
Chidubem said categorically in the interview that; “Olilifood Delivery is food delivery company connecting customers to their favorite restaurants. The Olilifood app features a list of restaurants (in areas we operate). Customers can browse through the Olilifood App and order food from any restaurant of their choice directly from the app. The App also allows restaurant managers to see these orders which they process and prepare for Olilifood riders to deliver to customers location.”
How do they carry out their Transactions?
The OliliFood app has an inbuilt wallet which is funded before customers can place orders. The wallet can be funded with direct bank top-up, paystack and crypto currency. Chidubem added the precise reason why they have done so;
“To ensure that we provide the best of services to our customers, we have provided multiple funding options to them, crypto being one of them. Cryptocurrency has seen a massive adoption not just among individuals but also big organizations, it provides an efficient, safe way to carry out transactions hence the decision to adopt it as a funding method. A user survey further established the fact that our app users would love to have cryptocurrency as a funding method.”
This shows that there has been a consistent study on their clientele. Indicating that there is a growing demand for seamless transactions in crypto amongst Nigerians. So far, the outcome of their adoption has been positive and it is definitely growing fast.
He said at least 12% of user wallet funding has come through cryptocurrency, which would translate to an average of 100 cryptocurrency funding transactions per week. This is not bad at all, considering that they are a start up and still have ample time to grow.
Business Risks in Crypto
The general fear and suspicion for crypto does not end with traders incurring loss every once in a while. But also with businesses who transact in crypto having an avalanche fall when crypto declines.
Has anyone thought about that? Maybe not, because crypto trading is still largely based on capital appreciation, staking and yield farming here in Nigeria.
However, according to OliliFood Delivery, the biggest setback they have encountered is the government ban. This has caused the crypto transactions to drop massively. In the interview, he lamented that;
“The major challenge we are faced with right now is the government ban on financial institutions’ involvement in cryptocurrency transactions. The ban has drastically reduced the use of cryptocurrency for transactions, financial institutions are on the lookout for accounts carrying out cryptocurrency transactions, nobody wants to have their account locked or frozen”
So it’s imperative that despite how good crypto may seem, it can be affected by surrounding circumstances and indirectly it affects businesses. It only takes some form of resilience to wield it nonetheless. OliliFood to a great measure has proven this. The fact that they did not simply abandon crypto altogether shows that there would be more companies like this in Nigeria sooner than later.
The Brighter Side
The advice to any company that wishes to adopt crypto as a means of transaction, is to fully understand what it takes to actually buy and sell in crypto. It is a wild world but if one has the determination to chase it, it will be worth it in the long run.
Using crypto to carry out business transactions is actually rewarding. One advantage is,paying employees will be more convenient especially if they are in different parts of the world because creating a payroll with different currencies can be tasking and costly.
Secondly, you would not have to battle with crowd funding issues and raising capital. It is one of the most transparent ways to raise funds because donors can see how much donations have come in.
Crypto is also a viable form of payment. Although one of the main criticisms of crypto is that there is no inherent value. However, it keeps coins secure using an offline wallet and it has a finite supply that encourages exponential growth of value as demand increases. This and a number of other reasons give businesses a stepping stone over those that still use fiat currency.
In a nutshell, cryptocurrency is beginning to develop a smooth interaction with businesses in Nigeria. The account from Olilifood is very positive. On their path, cryptocurrency funding has been confirmed to be a tad bit faster than other funding methods and can easily be said to be the most reliable with 98% in the reliability to reliability scale.
