Fortaleza, a major city of northeast Brazil, will start accepting Bitcoin (BTC) as payment for bus tickets by the end of 2019.
Transportation service says paying with Bitcoin will reduce operational costs
A
local transportation service announced an initiative to allow citizens
to pay for bus tickets by credit and debit cards as well as Bitcoin and
other cryptocurrencies, as reported
by Cointelegraph Brazil on July 25. The initiative purportedly aims to
reduce operational costs in the bus ticketing system, the report notes.
The
entity, called Cooperative of Independent Transport of Passengers of
the State of Ceará (Cootraps), said that passengers will be able to pay
for their trips with Bitcoin through their smartphones by scanning a QR
code, as first reported by Brazilian tabloid newspaper O Povo.
Cootraps lets people pay for bus trips with Bitcoin
While
Cootraps reportedly stated that the upcoming system will also accept
some other cryptos besides Bitcoin, the cooperative did not clarify any
further details on the matter. At press time, Cootraps’ website is unavailable.
However,
Carlos Robério Sampaio, CFO at Cootraps, reportedly said that new
payment methods will allow to reduce bureaucracy and will attract more
users as the entity expects to simplify payment procedures by processing
them via electronic vouchers. Additionally, passengers will be able to
pay for tickets without disturbing the driver, the report notes.
Meanwhile, the head of a major Brazilia’s Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo, has recently said
that Brazilians could start using crypto to evade taxes in the light of
the upcoming tax reform proposal by President Jair Bolsonaro.
