Business School Received Two Payments in Crypto in a Year
Two students at ESMT Berlin have already paid their tuition fees in cryptocurrency since the business school began accepting it as a payment method in December 2016, Georg Garlichs, Chief Financial Officer of ESMT told Cryptonews.com.
“There was one student from Vietnam who used Bitcoin due to the difficulty in sending a wire transfer, and there was another lady who wanted to join us from Brazil,” Garlichs added.
The decision to accept cryptocurrency was a very practical one. Approximately 85% of ESMT students come from abroad and this includes non-EU countries such as Brazil, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. Therefore when it comes to making a payment there is often a lengthy and expensive process.
“I became aware of the Bitcoin concept at a Blockchain contest award ceremony we held here [in May 2016]. I tried it and played with it with small amounts and sent portions of bitcoins back and forth. Then, I sent them to an exchange and sold them and it all worked very well,” Garlichs explained.
The private institution has not just limited itself to accepting Bitcoin, with tuition fees also payable in Ethereum, Litecoin and Dash.
However, it was not all smooth sailing for ESMT and there has been some rejection along the way. The largest German crypto exchange Bitcoin.de would not accept ESMT as a client when approached, because they did not accept institutions as customers at the time.
“After they said no, we went to Kraken. It is too bad that [Bitcoin.de] would not accept us. As a private individual there is not a problem but as an institution they would not accept us,” said Garlichs.
He added that ESMT is keen to ride the crypto wave further – in 2018 there are a number of courses available to those students who want to learn more about trends such as the blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Initial Coin Offerings.
