A bitcoin exchange and wallet service, BitX allows South African customers to pay for mobile phone minutes and data bundles in bitcoin.

BitX, a bitcoin service based in Singapore, Cape Town, and Jakarta announced that bitcoin can now be used bitcoin to pay for mobile phone minutes and data purchased from any mobile operator in South Africa. The option will be added to BitX iOS and Android mobile apps in the coming weeks. A video explains how to select the payable equivalent in ZAR, the local currency, and send the funds to the mobile operator.



“With a few simple clicks, users can now top up their mobile phone airtime credit or buy data bundles from any of the South African mobile operators,” the company's blog states.



Founded in 2013, BitX is one of the largest South African bitcoin platforms that started trading bitcoin for the local currency, rands. In 2014, BitX partnered with PayFast, one of the largest payment gateways in South Africa, to help online merchants accept digital currency payments. The BitX mobile app supporting the Know Your Customer identity verification scheme was launched in November 2014.



Earlier this month, BitX attended the BitHub launch event in Cape Town, a new space offering education and promoting digital currency awareness where BitX gave a presentation on their role in the global bitcoin economy. In April, BitX participated in the first South African bitcoin conference that allegedly brought together “merchants, investors, venture capitalists, start-ups and bitcoin enthusiasts who are all looking to move bitcoin forward in Africa”.



Africa is a quickly growing market in the bitcoin space. The view on emerging markets as having more potential for bitcoin payments than the Western European one was articulated at the Bitcoin Expo 2015 conference in London. Despite the continent’s perceived “backwardness”, it may be easier to develop bitcoin in Africa because there is no equivalent to the sophisticated Western banking system, which may act as a barrier.



Earlier, CoinFox wrote about BitMoby, an Australian mobile service that allows customers to top up their mobile accounts with bitcoin. Another company in the region is GoCoin, which added a text billing option to their range of services in August of 2014. The feature enables mobile operators to send invoices to their customers' mobile devices in a text message.