IslamicFinance.de

Founded in San Francisco and recently moved to Jakarta, a financial startup called Blossom aims at nothing less than shaking up the microfinance sector in Indonesia. The company, launched in October 2014 by US entrepreneur and practicing Muslim Matthew Joseph Martin, plans to bring Shariah-compliant microfinance to the country. What sets Blossom apart from other financing schemes are two special features. First of all, its entire platform is Shariah-compliant. The second feature is the fact that its platform uses the cryptocurrency Bitcoin for global money transfers, at least in the background, to keep transfer costs low and money flows transparent. Last month, Blossom announced that it will make a "pilot investment of up to 100,000" in Bitcoins into BMT Nusantara Condet to fund small to medium businesses in Jakarta.

A startup that recently relocated from San Francisco to Jakarta aims to shake up micro-finance in Indonesia. Blossom‘s concept can be said to be breaking ground: it operates on Bitcoin and targets the global Muslim community. Blossom collects money from investors around the globe. Blossom does not hand down the funds to business owners directly, but via an experienced microfinance institution on the ground. After a 12-month investment cycle, Blossom collects profits from the microfinance institutions and distributes them back to the investors. Blossom expects returns in the range of 7.5 to 12.5 percent, and itself takes a 20 percent cut on the returns. All of its money transfers are based on Bitcoin.