Every financial adviser knows this story in one form or another. It is Friday afternoon, 10 minutes to the market close. Your biggest client calls with a problem.
“My daughter lost her wallet. She’s traveling in India. She has no cash, no credit card, no bank account, no place to stay, nothing to eat. She’s not close to an office that issues travelers checks. How soon can we wire money?”
Uh-oh.
You can’t remember the last time your team handled an international wire. Maybe it was never. You know these transfers often take days.
What to do?
I have fielded my share of similar requests. Which is part of the reason I recently developed an interest in bitcoin. It is both a currency and a payment system. The currency can be sent anywhere in the world in 10 minutes. No fees, and the mechanics are really simple.
In fact the more I learn, the more I wonder how long it will be before bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies work their way into the business of wealth management. It’s prime time to get involved in crypto while it’s still in its relative infancy so that when it does take over and becomes part of wealth management at large, you will be ahead of the curve. Apps that are purpose-made for trading Bitcoin might be a good starting place for those interested in doing this. There are solutions available for those trading internationally and who might not necessarily speak English as their first language – Bitcoin Revolution zwendel of niet – Dutch being one of these.
Yeah, yeah. I have read about the spectacular hacks, the collapse of organizations such as Mt. Gox. I understand bitcoin is highly volatile. And I am not sure how many companies–other than Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic–accept it as payment.
So I did a little digging.
After speaking with a friend I surfed to localbitcoins.com, where the home page says you can trade bitcoin in 5,934 cities in 231 countries. I found people willing to meet in person and exchange Indian rupees for bitcoin. Locations included New Delhi and Dehradun. To my surprise, there were no meet-ups available in Mumbai.
But when I changed the payment method–I agreed to accept rupee deposits into local Indian banks–the number of cities and range of choices expanded exponentially.
Problem solved. Indian banks are open on Saturdays. Score one for bitcoin.
I then turned to the other potential uses, like asset protection. Wealthy clients are targets for opportunistic litigation. Why not try bitcoin as a low-cost form of asset protection? The currency has no central authority. And it is held in electronic wallets which, unlike bank accounts, can’t be frozen.
Continue reading on the Wall Street Journal.
The New York Times describes my novels as “money porn,” “a red-hot franchise,” and “glittery thrillers about fiscal malfeasance.” Through fiction I explore the dark side of money and the motivations of those who have it, want more, and will steamroll anybody who gets in their way.