Norwegian Pushes Crypto Adoption Further Beyond Its Company

Adoption Stablecoin

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Fredrik Vold

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Fredrik Vold

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June 26, 2023 06:55 EDT

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Stablecoins may be about to see more widespread use in traditional business as “several big suppliers” of the low-cost carrier and one of the biggest airlines in Europe, Norwegian, are reportedly positive about this alternative transaction method.

As reported, Norwegian is launching its own cryptocurrency exchange, the Norwegian Block Exchange (NBX).

Now, speaking in a recent interview with Forbes contributor Martin Rivers, Stig Aleksander Kjos-Mathisen, NBX’s managing director and son-in-law of Norwegian founder Bjørn Kjos, explained that crypto adoption could quickly move beyond than just airline ticket sales.

“We have discussed with partners if they are willing to look into accepting US Dollar Coin USDC] as a way to pay instead of using traditional settlements,” Kjos-Mathisen was quoted as saying. He further added that responses from several “big” suppliers had been “positive.”

Norwegian aims to allow customers to buy flight tickets with cryptocurrency in the fourth quarter of this year and the company will either convert the funds to NOK or it will maintain a USDC balance sheet as working capital, according to the report.

The revenue of Norwegian stood at NOK 40 billion (USD 4.6 billion) in 2018, or 30% more than a year ago, while its net loss was NOK 1.45 million (USD 0.17 million).

In the interview, Kjos-Mathisen also stressed that bypassing the banks, processing companies can lead to big savings for the airline: “it will give us the opportunity to get the liquidity immediately.”

“Why should we wait for our revenues, and then have the credit card acquirers and the credit card companies make a lot of interest just sitting on that money,” he said.
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The company also “definitely” plans to roll out “interest-bearing wallets” – “tapping into the growing popularity of decentralized finance services that use smart contracts to issue crowdfunded loans,” according to the report.

Asked about what his father-in-law, the 73-year-old Norwegian founder Bjørn Kjos, thinks of the plans, Kjos-Mathisen simply said:

“He believes that the banks and the credit card companies are the next Kodaks.”

As reported, Norwegian is not the only airline currently experimenting with the blockchain technology. Russian airliner S7 said in late July that it has already set up a blockchain-based ticketing system to streamline how ticketing agents work with the airline. According to the airline, more than USD 1 million worth of sales was processed via the new system in July alone.