Bitso Business: Cross-Border Payments with Stablecoins in LatAm

Bitso Business: cross-border payments with stablecoins in LatAm

Overview

How do stablecoins solve cross-border payments in Latin America? In this MERGE Madrid talk, Bitso Business explains how to build cross-border payments infrastructure for the “global south”: the problem of local currencies, on-ramp and off-ramp, the USD-MXN corridor, remittances, treasury and real stablecoin use cases.

What you'll learn

• The “global south” problem: why cross-border payments are slow and opaque
• On-ramp and off-ramp: from local fiat to stablecoin and back in seconds
• The USD-MXN corridor: the largest FX corridor in the world
• Remittances: sending money 24/7, even outside banking hours
• Treasury: centralizing positions across multiple currencies
• Use cases: corporate payments and paying global developers

Session summary

The problem: Bitso Business explains that in the “global south” (Latin America, Africa) access to global trade goes through the dollar and chains of correspondent banks, making payments slow, opaque on fees and unpredictable.

The stablecoin solution: through on-ramp, payment is collected in local fiat and converted in seconds to dollar-pegged stablecoins (USDT or USDC), which are sent on-chain and off-ramped into another currency and location; what used to take days now takes minutes.

The USD-MXN corridor: it is presented as the largest FX corridor in the world (valued at 60 billion dollars a year, according to the talk), in which Bitso claims to already move around 10% of the volume via stablecoins, combining banking and crypto rails based on efficiency.

Remittances and treasury: it highlights the ability to send money 24/7 (even outside banking hours) and to centralize the treasury of multinational companies, moving in and out of any currency in seconds without needing to hold deposits.

Use cases: it cites companies such as Clara (payments and corporate spending) and platforms that pay developers worldwide instantly; the key, according to the talk, is to combine 24/7 FX with the ability to collect and disburse payments in local markets.

Watch the full talk

Watch the full recording on MERGE's YouTube channel, with Bitso Business on cross-border payments with stablecoins in LatAm.

FAQs

What are on-ramp and off-ramp?
According to the talk, on-ramp converts local fiat into stablecoin and off-ramp converts the stablecoin back into another currency, enabling cross-border payments in minutes.

What is the USD-MXN corridor?
According to the talk, the largest foreign-exchange corridor in the world (US dollar to Mexican peso), valued at around 60 billion dollars a year.

Why stablecoins for remittances?
According to the talk, because they allow sending money 24/7, including outside banking hours, with greater speed and predictability.

Is this investment advice?
No. This content is informational and summarizes what was presented in the talk; it does not constitute investment or legal advice. Consult a professional for your specific situation.