Billon Adds Its Own Twist To P2P Tip Payments

Polish FinTech company Billon is rolling the dice with a new P2P payments network aimed at the online gaming community.

The payments startup is powering a new payment feature for the users of the popular video streaming and gaming network Twitch, enabling them to send micropayments through a seamless payment system essentially tipping content creators, reports TechCrunch.

The gaming network, which was acquired by Amazon in 2014 for $970 million, is home to an active and engaged network of gaming enthusiasts. The network allows players to broadcast live gameplay and upload videos to the network of over 55 million users.

To gather “tips” through the payments network, Twitch users must add a button to their user public profile and add funds to their accounts using various methods. Once the funds have been credited to their account, they simply select the friends they’d like to “tip” and send their payment through the Twitch interface. Recipients can cash out in multiple ways, including cash, prepaid cards, vouchers and checks.

Billon’s founders have been working on the network infrastructure, which they sometimes refer to as “the Skype of payments,” since 2012. Their goal was to allow global customers to send secure and costless payments to one another in the currency of their choice.

“Billion has created the world’s first blockchain-enabling government currency transactions that is compliant with regulations,” Cofounder Andrzej Horoszczak told TechCrunch. “This is important. Mass adoption can only occur if clients are using their existing mobile phones and favorite local currency. Today, payments are a broken end-to-end value chain full of intermediaries, payment insurers, liquidity providers, clearing agents, settlement agents and accountholders. Imagine giving the power to truly provide an end-to-end solution … and eliminate all the cost, risk and hassle that exists today.”

Per the TechCrunch story, Billon currently has a group of 1,300 users in a soft launch on Twitch with all transactions falling into the sub-$10 electronic transaction category. This small transaction market holds huge potential as people look for easy ways to send small amounts of money digitally without the hassle of banking fees.

Twitch is only the first implementation of the software, and Billion will begin rolling out additional partnerships this month.

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