remittance

Decentralised.co reported that the cost of sending $200 across borders is currently 6.36%, down from 9.67% in 2009, with the United Nations aiming to reduce it to 3% by 2030. Remittances consist of three parts: collecting from the remitter, transferring value, and paying the recipient, with the intermediate stage previously being slower and now the cheapest part. Receiving and paying require licenses, bank accounts, compliance, and payment networks. The process from Dubai to Manila takes about six steps, with only one step using blockchain.Pre-funded agent accounts decentralize operating capital. Tokenized dollars can be concentrated in a single funding pool, settled on Sundays, and rebalanced within minutes. Traders hold inventory and bear exchange rate risks. Félix Pago raised $200 million to facilitate remittances from the U.S. to Latin America via WhatsApp, with a16z leading a $87 million equity round and General Catalyst providing a $113 million credit line. Nium is now funding customer payments in USDC. a16z Crypto led a $10 million investment in Better Money. Conduit raised $36 million for corridors from Europe to Nigeria and Kenya, while Palla raised $14.5 million for white-label payments to thirty banks.The article states that stablecoins can fix pipeline issues but cannot resolve isolated systems related to legal matters or toll collection.

According to Bloomberg, the stablecoin cross-border remittance startup Felix Pago announced the completion of a $200 million Series B funding round.This round of financing includes $87 million in equity financing and $113 million in credit line financing. The equity financing was co-invested by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), while the credit line financing comes from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund.Felix Pago is currently one of the most representative stablecoin remittance networks in Latin America, primarily using WhatsApp as the front-end entry point, and leveraging USDC and blockchain as the underlying settlement infrastructure, significantly reducing the cost and time for cross-border remittances from the United States to Mexico.

The Shanghai Public Security Bureau reported the investigation and resolution of a major underground money laundering case involving cross-border currency exchange using virtual currency, arresting more than 70 criminal suspects, with the amount involved exceeding 20 billion yuan.

WasabiCard's global remittance service supports over 30 fiat currencies, providing cross-border payment and bulk fund distribution capabilities for businesses, fintech platforms, and internet-native enterprises. Eligible payment channels support real-time or T+0 settlement.This service uses stablecoins as the funding allocation and settlement layer, connecting the traditional banking system with local payment networks. After completing the necessary KYC/KYB verification, users can deposit USDT into their WasabiCard accounts and exchange USDT for their chosen fiat currency through the global remittance feature, which is then transferred in real-time to the user's personal bank card account with the same name. In scenarios of corporate fund management and fund collection, eligible businesses can also use corporate bank accounts for receiving payments.Businesses can initiate payments to employees, contractors, suppliers, creators, affiliate partners, and platform merchants through a unified management backend or API. Core capabilities include bulk payments, smart routing, transparent exchange rates and fees, payment status tracking, and financial reconciliation.

In a research report released by the Bank of Italy in July 2026, a "mystery shopper" empirical investigation was conducted for the first time, tracking 200 USDC transfers across ten corridors between Italy and Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, the UAE, and Japan. The results showed that the total cost of stablecoin remittances fluctuated greatly, with a minimum of only 0.3% and a maximum close to 9%. On-chain transfers accounted for an average of only 0.4%, with the bulk of costs concentrated in fiat withdrawal and deposit stages—traditional intermediary fees such as exchange buy-sell spreads, credit card fees, and withdrawal fees were the decisive factors. Compared to traditional channels like Wise, stablecoins have a cost advantage in some corridors like Brazil to Italy, but the costs are higher in corridors like UAE to Italy, showing a high degree of "corridor specificity."In terms of speed, blockchain transfers themselves take only a few minutes, but end-to-end efficiency entirely depends on the quality of the traditional payment infrastructure in the destination country. Countries with instant payment systems, such as Brazil (PIX), Italy (TIPS), and Argentina (Transferencias 3.0), can keep the entire process under 20 minutes; whereas countries like South Africa, which rely on traditional bank transfers, see the arrival time extended to 1 to 2 business days. The report pointed out that the efficiency of stablecoin remittances is jointly determined by their own infrastructure and the surrounding traditional payment infrastructure, with both being complementary rather than substitutive. The report also analyzed the impact of global regulatory fragmentation: the EU's MiCA and the US's GENIUS Act represent mature compliance frameworks; Japan's strict "safety first" access, while lowering nominal costs, complicates processes leading users to offshore platforms; countries like India and Turkey are in a transitional regulatory phase; while countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with prohibitive measures, have failed to suppress demand, instead pushing transactions into gray channels.

TripleA CEO Eric Barbier stated that the future of remittances is remittances without remittances. He does not truly believe in stablecoin sandwich remittances (fiat to stablecoin and then back to fiat). In most cases, remittances mean transferring strong currencies into weak currencies. However, stablecoins provide new value: they allow people in emerging countries to hold strong currencies. As related platforms encourage merchants to accept cryptocurrencies, stablecoins can now be consumed directly. Therefore, the future for people in emerging countries is not to hold local currencies, but to hold stablecoins, earn returns, and spend them.

According to News.bitcoin, data released by the Central Bank of El Salvador shows that in the first half of 2026, only 35.4 million dollars in external remittances were channeled into the country through digital currency. This figure accounts for only 0.7% of the total remittances to the country in 2026 (over 5 billion dollars). Nevertheless, the amount of cryptocurrency remittances is still significantly higher than the level in the first half of 2025, when the cryptocurrency remittance amount was 25.4 million dollars, an increase of 39.1%.

Cryptocurrency trading and liquidity service provider Cumberland announced on platform X that its Singapore subsidiary Cumberland SG Pte. Ltd. has obtained the MPI license issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), allowing it to provide Digital Payment Token (DPT) services and cross-border money transfer services.

Cryptocurrency trading and liquidity service provider Cumberland announced on platform X that its Singapore subsidiary Cumberland SG Pte. Ltd. has obtained the MPI license issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), allowing it to conduct Digital Payment Token (DPT) services and cross-border money transfer services.

Hyundai Card announced on the 9th that it has completed a proof of concept (PoC) for cross-border remittances based on stablecoins with Hyundai Motor America (HMA) and Hyundai Motor Mexico (HMM). In the first PoC, the U.S. entity converted $20,000 into USDT and then remitted it to the Mexican entity, which converted it back to dollars. The entire process, including international remittance and verification, averaged only 7 minutes, significantly shorter than the 3 to 4 hours typically required for traditional bank cross-border remittances. Tether and Avalanche participated in this verification.The second phase of the PoC will be launched at the end of this month, targeting Hyundai Motor's European entity, to conduct actual remittances in local currency instead of dollars, verifying the cost-saving effects of currency exchange. Circle and Visa will participate as partners. Hyundai Card emphasized that this verification has comprehensively considered regulatory requirements such as accounting, taxation, legal, and internal controls, going beyond mere technical testing to reach the level of actual business deployment. In the future, there are plans to expand the application of stablecoins to inter-entity settlements and fund transfers within Hyundai Motor Group's global network.

According to SBS Biz, in the past three years, overseas remittances through cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea have increased by 380%, while remittances through traditional banks have only grown by 20%. Last year, the total amount of foreign currency remittances from South Korea's five major banks was 159 trillion won (approximately 122 billion USD), an increase of 20% compared to 131.8 trillion won (approximately 101 billion USD) in 2022.At the same time, data from the office of Congressman Kim Sang-hoon shows that during the same period, the remittance amount through the five major won-denominated cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea surged from 34.02 trillion won (approximately 26.2 billion USD) to 163.55 trillion won (approximately 125.8 billion USD), an increase of 380%. Dongguk University professor Hwang Seok-jin attributes the significant growth in cryptocurrency remittances to their lower transaction fees compared to banks.

According to Cointelegraph, South Korea's Toss Bank will adopt Solana to conduct a global remittance and settlement proof of concept, aiming to provide its users with faster and lower-cost cross-border transaction services.

According to South Korean media SBS Biz, South Korea is considering allowing various parties, including exchanges and fintech companies, to participate in the upcoming virtual asset overseas remittance business system. This system is expected to be implemented in December this year. Relevant individuals revealed that the government has recently begun drafting the implementation details of the partial amendment to the Foreign Exchange Transaction Act and is reviewing the registration requirements for virtual asset transfer businesses.The core content of the amendment is to include cross-border virtual asset transfers within the regulatory framework of the Foreign Exchange Transaction Act, defining it as "virtual asset transfer business." Companies intending to engage in virtual asset transfer business must register with the Office of the Minister of Economy and Finance of South Korea and report relevant information through the foreign exchange computer network of the Bank of Korea when cross-border transfer transactions occur. Previously, cross-border virtual asset transactions had been outside the foreign exchange regulatory framework, raising concerns that these transactions could be used for illegal foreign exchange trading or money laundering activities. This system improvement aims to incorporate virtual asset transfer transactions into the management and regulatory system.

According to CoinPost, SBI Holdings completed a strategic investment in the global stablecoin payment and cryptocurrency trading platform Fasset in May 2026, and announced that its international remittance subsidiary SBI Remit signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Fasset. Both parties will jointly build a next-generation international remittance infrastructure based on stablecoin technology.Fasset is a digital bank focused on the Asian, Middle Eastern, and African markets, providing stablecoin settlement, remittance, and investment services through its own payment network "Own Network." It currently covers 125 countries and regions and has over 2 million users. The company completed a $51 million Series B financing in the same month, with investors including SBI Group, Bahrain asset management company Investcorp, and Turkey's Arz Portföy, among others.

Zelle operator Early Warning Services announced that India will be the first country for U.S. users to remit money to overseas friends and family through Zelle, with the service expected to launch by the end of this year. The company also introduced its own dollar-backed stablecoin ZelleUSD (ZLUSD) to support future international payment capabilities in other markets, with more details to be announced in the coming months. Early Warning Services is jointly owned by seven U.S. financial institutions, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.

According to PR Newswire, global payment giant MoneyGram announced a strategic partnership with Layer 1 blockchain Tempo to become its core validation node for cross-border remittances (Anchor Remittance Validator) and participate in network transaction validation.The three parties will jointly build a global interoperable payment network based on stablecoins, promoting on-chain settlement in real fund flows, while Stripe will provide on-chain stablecoin settlement services for MoneyGram on the Tempo infrastructure.

KB Financial Group announced that it has completed the technical proof of concept for the Korean won stablecoin in scenarios such as payments, settlements, and international remittances. This verification was jointly completed by KB Financial Group, electronic payment company KG Inicis, public chain Kaia, and digital asset solution company OpenAsset, covering the entire financial service process including the issuance of the Korean won stablecoin, offline payments, merchant settlements, and cross-border remittances.According to reports, the solution migrates the internal settlement system to a blockchain architecture while maintaining users' original financial service habits. Among them, actual payment scenarios have been tested through the offline self-service terminals of the chain coffee brand Hollys, allowing users to make payments via QR codes without the need to install a digital wallet; the system automatically executes on-chain smart contracts during the settlement phase. In addition, in the cross-border remittance test, the system first exchanges the Korean won stablecoin for US dollar stablecoins through Kaia's on-chain liquidity, and then the local partner in Vietnam completes the fiat currency crediting. The entire remittance process takes only about 3 minutes, with fees reduced by approximately 87% compared to traditional SWIFT remittance models.

According to Insight Korea, South Korea's digital bank K Bank has established a strategic partnership with blockchain company Ripple to advance the verification of next-generation cross-border remittance technology based on blockchain.Both parties will focus on assessing the optimization potential in remittance speed, cost structure, and transaction transparency through Ripple's global payment network and infrastructure. The current collaboration includes proof of concept based on digital wallets, joint development of cross-border remittance models, and expansion in the digital asset field. The ongoing second phase of testing has simulated the connection between the bank's internal systems and customer accounts, testing on-chain fund transfers aimed at the UAE and Thailand. K Bank is also evaluating the adoption of Ripple's SaaS digital wallet Palisade to enhance compliance and deployment efficiency.

According to Reuters, foreign exchange market-making and cross-border remittance startup OpenFX has completed a $94 million financing round, led by institutions such as Accel, Lightspeed Faction, M13, Northzone, and Pantera, with a post-money valuation of approximately $500 million.OpenFX provides faster and lower-cost settlement services for large cross-border funds by using stablecoins as a bridge connecting the banking system with blockchain infrastructure. The company claims that over 98% of transactions on its platform can be settled within 60 minutes, and its annual payment processing scale has increased from approximately $4 billion to about $45 billion. OpenFX plans to use this round of funding to expand into Southeast Asia and Latin America markets.