Cryptocurrency Adoption Grows Beyond ‘Bitcoin City’ in Slovenia and Croatia

The number of stores that accept cryptocurrencies is rising in Slovenia and Croatia. Starting with merchants in one of the largest shopping and entertainment complexes in Europe, Elipay has now integrated with 300 stores in Slovenia and begun expanding into Croatia following approval by the country’s central bank.

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300 Locations in Slovenia Including Bitcoin City

Cryptocurrency adoption has been rapidly growing in Slovenia. Elipay by startup Eligma is a crypto payment mobile app for iOS and Android devices. Many stores at one of the largest shopping and entertainment complexes in Europe, BTC City, have integrated Elipay which currently supports BCH, BTC, ETH, and ELI token.

Urska Celig, Eligma Marketing and Communications Coordinator, told news.Bitcoin.com Thursday:

We have reached another Elipay milestone this week – 300 locations … About one third of them are in Bitcoin City.

Eligma describes Bitcoin City as “the result of infusing one of Central Europe’s largest and most important commercial, shopping and logistic areas, BTC City,” with cryptocurrencies and other innovations. There are over 500 shops in BTC City.

Nationwide, “The number of Elipay locations is constantly increasing,” Celig remarked. “Elipay now covers most service and product categories: food and drinks, fashion, electronics, services, sports and leisure, entertainment, home and garden, toys and kids, pets, auto and moto, travel, adult, online stores, and other.” The latest addition, announced on April 5, was for Intaxi which allows taxi rides in and around the capital city to be paid for with cryptocurrencies.

Celig further shared:

In addition to the use of crypto for shopping with the Elipay system, the Bank of Slovenia has also approved euro value to be added into Elipay by means of credit / debit cards and SEPA.

Expansion Into Croatia

Eligma has been working on its global expansion, starting with Croatia. “The Croatian National Bank has confirmed that Elipay can legally operate in Croatia,” the company tweeted on April 1.

Celig explained to news.Bitcoin.com that after the central bank “confirmed the legality of Elipay operating in Croatia, the localization of the system started taking place,” emphasizing that it “will actually be completed in the course of next week.” He also revealed that his company is “already in contact with ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning software] providers as well as individual merchants and service providers, so that the first integrations can be expected as early as next month,” adding:

We will initially test and adjust the expansion model. In that phase, our goal is to enter the first 20 stores … If the testing is successful and a decision is made to fully expand throughout Croatia, then we anticipate that over 200 locations could integrate Elipay by the end of the year.

Billy, a major ERP and prospective payment system (PPS) provider in Croatia, is in the process of integrating Elipay into its system. Once completed, the system will “be tested and re-evaluated. This will be followed by a review of the technical documentation in order to prevent any potential issues with future updates,” Celig described. Eligma has also been negotiating with another ERP provider in the country.

While the company has been conducting market research to establish which countries to expand into next, Celig confirmed that further expansion “will only be initiated once the proof of concept on the Croatian model (MVP) has been brought to a successful conclusion.”

What do you think of cryptocurrency adoption in Slovenia and Croatia? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Eligma.

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