Sylo Partners with Indian Exchange Bitbns to Serve the Indian Market

Global software development house Sylo has officially partnered with premiere Indian exchange, Bitbns, to better serve the Indian market’s growing demand for legitimate crypto-projects.

A unique place where the old and new worlds collide, it’s clearer every day to those watching the market that #IndiaWantsCrypto

Bitbns, a bona fide cryptocurrency exchange and one of India’s first, represents a significant partnership for Sylo that is positioned to help extend key functionalities into the experience of Sylo Smart Wallet users. 

The Sylo-Bitbns alliance is one that makes sense across business and product levels - with both partners sharing the belief that “digital currencies are the future of money” and are an area to which users need straightforward access.

Through their partnership, Sylo and Bitbns aim to take cryptocurrency usage to the mainstream in India.

Often deemed complex, Sylo solves one of the biggest hurdles to the normalisation of cryptocurrency through the Sylo Smart Wallet, a highly-usable app designed from conception to “make crypto simple”.

The move for a more dedicated expansion into India will not come as a surprise to anyone keeping an eye on the Sylo success story. Recently, the tech firm revealed that in Q2 2020, they had already seen a 500% growth in sign ups to the Sylo Smart Wallet app from India, with Indian users now making up 30% of the app’s more than 250,000 strong overall user-base.

"India's new-found enthusiasm for digital assets and privacy after the restriction of certain privacy-hogging apps like WeChat and TikTok, has presented a significant opportunity to offer India a ‘WeChat’ of sorts that incorporates all the best elements of new generation communications tech, without the privacy concerns, and with the added benefits of crypto assets,” says Bitbns CEO Gaurav Dahake. 

“This is an area where the Sylo Smart Wallet, being developed on decentralised infrastructure, is primed to address, and a key reason we’re excited about this partnership opportunity.”

Sylo also offers a solution for the unbanked of India. In terms of barriers to get started on Sylo, there are very few - neither a sign up cost nor the mandatory provision of an email address or phone number is required in order to create a Sylo Smart Wallet account.

The result of this forward-thinking is the ability to instantly provide millions of people with access to de-fi services. Using the Sylo Smart Wallet, users can request and receive payments in chat, store and interact with digital assets  such as Bitcoin or any ERC-20 compatible token, such as Ether or BAT, in the non-custodial wallet.

“We realised a long time ago that in order to see widespread adoption, we needed to make interacting with crypto as simple as any other activity you might do on a smartphone,” says Dorian Johannink, Sylo Co-Founder and Business Director. “That’s why sending and receiving cryptocurrency in the Sylo Smart Wallet is as straightforward as sending a message.”

“Our design team have worked hard to create an app that is clean, fast, intuitive, and astonishingly simple to use. The Sylo Smart Wallet user statistics speak for themselves, the app has been available for just ten months and already has over a quarter of a million users. We’re confident that Sylo can meet India’s desire to get in the crypto game.”

Other features of the app include the ability to send messages, make audio and video calls, utilise a Web3 Ethereum dApp browser to spend crypto, and to pay using cryptocurrency in the real world at relevant vending machines.

The Sylo-Bitbns partnership will also see the SYLO token, an ERC20-compatible utility token that fuels the Sylo Network, listed on the Bitbns platform as of July 23, 2020.

Is it tough times ahead for Indian IT firms?

Major information technology firms are expected to post a decline in revenue growth in the fourth quarter of 2008-09, primarily on account of project cancellations, say analysts.

"Indian vendors have witnessed several project cancellations during the third and fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2009. The magnitude of project cancellations is different for different vendors," domestic brokerage firm Motilal Oswal said in its India strategy report.

Along with project cancellations, delays in client decision making will cast a toll on 4Q FY-09 volumes, it said. "We expect IT companies to report quarter-on-quarter dollar revenue declines owing to stressed volumes and declining realisations. This is the second consecutive quarter where the sector will see dollar revenue degrowth," it said.

The rupee has depreciated 4.69 per cent against the US dollar during the March quarter, while on an year-on-year basis it has depreciated over 27 per cent.

"Hence, the top-line growth even in rupee terms is expected to remain flat to marginally negative on an organic basis during the quarter," brokerage firm Sharekhan said in its IT earnings preview. Meanwhile, the appreciation of the dollar against other international currencies (euro and pound sterling) would impact the dollar term revenues of the front-line IT firms.

"This is likely to have a negative impact of 2-3 per cent on the dollar term revenue growth rate as the IT companies bill around 25-30 per cent of their revenues in the pound sterling, the euro and Australian dollar," it added.

IT major Infosys would kick-start the quarterly earnings season from April 15 followed by other IT majors -- Wipro, HCL Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services.

"Forward earnings for most companies are not expected to be good. The earnings for the entire IT sector are expected to be bad and the Infosys results are likely to give a new direction to the market," Arun Kejriwal of Kejriwal Research and Investment Services said.

The Sharekhan report stated that amid global turmoil and uncertainty, investor focus would remain on FY-10 guidance. "Going forward, the street would be keenly watching the guidance for FY 2010 as the same would influence the sentiments towards the IT stocks. In rupee terms, the street expects a guidance of a flattish growth in revenues," it noted.

"The street is expecting a revenue growth of 3-4 per cent in rupee terms in FY-10 despite a five per cent y-o-y decline in dollar terms," Sharekhan added. During the January-March period, Infosys scrip has gained 15.38 per cent to Rs 1,324.10 and TCS was up 9 per cent.

While shares of Wipro fell one per cent since January 1, HCL Technologies was up 17 per cent at the end of March 31. "Technology stocks are likely to underperform the markets over the next few quarters," Sharekhan said.

According to Motilal Oswal following substantial across-the-board price cuts, IT companies are hopeful of restricting price cuts to five per cent in the March quarter. Besides, focus on off-shoring would improve the impact from declining realisations.

"We expect growth to start picking up from second half of FY-10, as clients begin to adopt off-shoring to cut costs. As the freeze in technology spending begins to lift, we believe large players would start booking volume growth," Motilal Oswal added.

The Sharekhan report stated that in terms of earnings, Infosys is likely to meet the lower end of its dollar guidance.

Besides, HCL Technologies is likely to report a revenue growth on the back of acquisition of British consultancy firm Axon, which would cast its toll on the operating profit margin of HCL.

Agencies