Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and Dash have a big role to play in the future of remittance payments. Cryptocurrencies are easy to transfer across the globe without being hindered by banking requirements. Bitso, one of Mexico’s largest bitcoin exchanges, has created a Mexico-Canada remittance corridor with the help of Paycase. Moving funds from bank accounts between the two countries by using blockchain technology is now an official feature.
Bitso Shakes Up The Remittance Sector
Finding a way to enable fiat currency-based micropayments has been challenging, to say the least. Using the banking system means these transfers suffer from high fees and unnecessary delays. Cryptocurrencies make a lot more sense in this regard, due to their global accessibility and lower fees. To be more precise, this made a lot of sense for bitcoin, yet its transaction fees have gone up spectacularly these past few weeks.
Bitso, one of the Mexican cryptocurrency exchanges, feels the time is now to put cryptocurrency technology to the test in the remittance sector. Creating a microtransaction corridor between Mexico and Canada is an important first step to make this happen. A bank transfer has been sent to Paycase and relayed to Bitso by using bitcoin. The final transfer between Bitso and the recipient occurred in the form of depositing Mexican pesos into a bank account. This entire process took around three minutes to complete, which is a lot quicker than using regular bank transfers.
For the time being, it remains unclear when the service will be made available to customers in either country. It is evident bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can support global payments in a quick manner without charging ludicrous fees. Remittance corridors need to be created to keep local economies alive. While Canada is economically healthy, the same does not apply to Mexico right now. The country has been warming up a bit to cryptocurrency over these past few weeks, albeit no significant bullish behavior has been recorded to date.
Although this particular trial makes use of bitcoin technology, it is not unthinkable alternative currencies such as Dash can be used for similar purposes. Dash transfers can even be sent anonymously, which allows users to retain a level of privacy by not exposing personal information to third parties. Bitcoin-based remittance services have been scrutinized by governments these past few years, which only makes a stronger case to use alternative currencies for this type of purpose.
