>Not mentioned in the article but I asked a shopkeeper why they use it. Answer is fraud. Earlier, customers would download a "fake" app, which miciked online gateway's UI. Customer would punch in money, and show to shopkeeper that "payment went through". Customer takes goods with them and leaves. Shopkeeper looses money.
I don't think half of India is using crypto currency transactions everyday. So this explanation makes more sense.
You might be right. I searched the name of the company and the CEO is a strong supporter of cryptocurrency, but there's no indication that their products are actually cryptocurrency related.
Still wouldn't make sense for there to be a 10 minute wait, unless the backend servers are just as clogged and unusable as popular blockchains are.
(Possibly crazy conspiracy theory w/ no basis in reality: The company is putting in `sleep(5mins + jitter)` into each transaction to prepare a fresh open-minded market for future cryptocurrency adoption when the legislative environment allows for it)
Edit: For some reason it's mentioned nowhere in the article, but it's because these are cryptocurrency transactions