A new bitcoin POS system, Coin of Sale, is trying to make it easier for merchants to accept bitcoin payments for their goods and services.
Created by Singapore-based expat Thomas Forgac, Coin of Sale works with both Android and iOS devices. When users sign up for an account, they are automatically set up with an Electrum wallet.
The merchant must simply enter the amount of money that needs to be charged and the app will automatically generate a QR code for it. The customer then scans this QR code to complete the payment.
This video by the company explains the process in more detail:
[youtube id=”U7qELuyzzOc” width=”620″ height=”360″]
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Forgac has been working on this POS system as a passion project since July 2013. However, after being encouraged by the local and the international response it has received, Forgac made it his full-time job at the start of the year.
In the second half of February, he launched a premium version that provides advanced reports and allows management of different outlets.
While the basic service is free of any commission charges, users need to pay 0.59% for the premium account. This service will soon also allow automatic fiat conversion, a feature that is Forgac’s top priority right now.
He added:
“Our current priority is to get the fiat versus Sing [SGD] in place which will allow merchants to withdraw 100% or smaller portions of their digital currency payments. This should help adoption with merchants who are more risk averse.”
The early adopters
The part-gallery part-café, Artistry, was the first place in Singapore to roll out Coin of Sale. CAD Café in the trendy Haji Lane was the next to follow suit. Now, more than 12 merchants in Singapore are using Coin of Sale – including a microbrewery, a printer shop and several restaurants and bars.
Despite the Singapore government’s regulatory crackdown, Forgac says the city-state is a good place to test out his product because of bitcoin’s general popularity here.
“I definitely feel more confident running it here than I would in some other parts of the world. Singapore is much more economically free than most of the world and any new regulation here is introduced gradually without bullying the existing businesses which it falls upon.”
Coin of Sale has also started to make the leap outside the Little Red Dot. A nail salon in Chicago, an independent movie theatre in Amsterdam and a couple of Subway outlets in the Czech Republic are also now using the service. Some of these merchants found out about Coin of Sale and started using the product even before Forgac made it his full-time job.
Coin of Sale is being used by Subway franchises in Czech RepublicImage via Coin of Sale