Digital currency wallet provider Pitaka has just launched a new feature that would allow its users to buy digital assets using Philippine Pesos with traditional payment rails.
Pitaka’s latest offering was made possible through its partnership with Transak, a fiat on-ramp support provider that lets users buy or sell crypto in any app, website, or web plugin. With the said collaboration, Pitaka’s users will now be able to buy digital assets like BTC, Ethereum (ETH), and Cardano (ADA) using debit and credit cards as well as via online payment services like Maya, ShopeePay, and GrabPay.
In a press release, Ralph Acabado, the CEO of Tetrix, Pitaka’s parent company, said that the partnership is a “key step” in Pitaka’s objective to broaden the investment options for millions of individuals. He likewise lauded Transak’s track record of providing fiat on-ramp services for digital asset service providers, hoping for a long-term collaboration between both parties.
“They offer a high level of security, sovereignty, privacy, and control over their money and private financial information. Pitaka, now integrated with Transak, makes it even easier for customers to access crypto and Web3 with peace of mind,” Acabado said.
He added that the scourge of recent implosions facing centralized exchanges plaguing the digital asset industry has since made it imperative for investors to consider self-custody wallets.
A huge leap for Pitaka
Etienne Gandon, a high-ranking executive at Transak, also expressed enthusiasm for the new partnership, saying that the company is keen to close more deals with industry firms.
“We’re glad that we are able to provide new payment methods for Pitaka. We hope more and more users benefit from this as we strive to make the onboarding process easier and more seamless for mainstream adoption,” Gandon said.
The same press release also stated that Pitaka has recently entered into a partnership with Unstoppable Domains, an NFT domain provider. The partnership will give users the ability to send and receive “digital collectibles” using human-readable domains.
Before implementing this new feature, users had to input lengthy and impossible-to-memorize characters to send digital assets.
Acabado explained that Unstoppable Domains are stored on distributed ledgers, making them essentially censor-proof from third parties.
“NFT domains provide a secure and user-friendly way to store and manage non-fungible assets on the blockchain. Because they are stored on the blockchain, they are resistant to censorship and control by any single entity, and they can’t be lost or stolen like physical assets can,” Acabado said.
A number of Filipino fintech firms, like Maya, have since been inching their way into offering digital assets to their customers. Digital asset providers, meanwhile, are scrambling to protect their turf by broadening the scope of their offerings.