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- Latino immigrants based in the U.S. can now send money back home in a matter of seconds with Félix.
- Fintech and crypto payment platforms continue to emerge in the wake of cross-border payment issues.
Solving the problems of cross-border payments has been the focal point for a lot of fintech and crypto platforms.
In a recent tweet, Stellar, a finance blockchain-based solution platform, announced that Félix and Bitso have partnered to create a stellar remittance solution for U.S.-based Latinos.
Remittances are largely still a manual process. People have to:
🚗 Travel in person to send or receive a remittance
💰 Pay a hefty transaction fee
🚨 Send or receive their remittances in physical cash, which can present safety concerns@Felixpago and @Bitso offer a solution ↓— Stellar (@StellarOrg) January 30, 2023
By combining AI and blockchain technology, the duo ensures that sending remittances on Félix is as easy and human as possible.
Félix is a Whatsapp-based payments platform that enables U.S.-based Latinos to send money back to their relatives in Latin America. Bitso, on the other hand, is the largest crypto platform in Latin America.
Stellar highlights a couple of challenges that traditional remittance solutions pose. It mentions; hefty processing fees, distance traveled to send or receive remittance, and safety concerns from holding physical cash. All of which Felix and Bitso solve.
The founders of Félix discovered their solution to the remittance riddle. According to Stellar, all it took was the combination of AI, a chat platform well-loved by Latinos in the US, the on/off ramps of Bitso, and USD Coin (USDC), a fully-reserved dollar cryptocurrency issued by Circle, on Stellar.
The long hours and days involved in processing remittances were also a major distress the partnership sought to solve.
In his statement, Manuel Godoy, co-founder and CEO of Félix, mentioned that, “We’re using USDC on the Stellar network, and it just works beautifully for us. Currently the whole remittance process can take up to an hour, sometimes days, starting from the sender going to a store to the beneficiary seeing the deposit. With Felix, it takes seconds.”
As Bitso’s partner, Félix has access to USDC, Mexican pesos, and over 34 other cryptocurrencies available on the platform. Felix can fund its Bitso account either with regular US dollar fiat or USDC.
The Issues of Cross-border Payments
Working as an immigrant in another country can be great till it comes to sending money back home.
The issues of cross-border payments have been around for a while and looked unsolvable till Fintechs and crypto platforms came around.
There’s an increasing number of financial payment solutions rising to turn the tides of long hours remittances to few seconds remittances.
According to the Migration data portal, over $600 billion was recorded in global remittances in 2022. This large market space is very much plagued with hefty transaction fees, days of processing, and distance traveled, among others.
Financial platforms like Felix and partnerships like that of Felix and Bitso have been the order. Many governments are actively partnering with fintech solutions to improve the revenue generated from the remittance.
