Latin America’s Bitso taps Stellar for cross-border payments

• Stellar and Bitso are collaborating to promote international USDC payments to Latin America.
• Bitso will use Stellar’s Anchor Network to facilitate cross-border payments and remittances to Argentina, Mexico and Colombia.
• Stellar recently partnered with HoneyComb and Coinme for similar USDC transactions.

Bitso, a Latin American crypto-powered financial services platform and crypto exchange, has announced a partnership with Stellar in an effort that will see the two collaborate in advancing international payments.

The partnership will see Bitso integrate Stellar’s Anchor Network to allow companies from across the world make USDC payments across Latin America, starting with Mexico, Colombia and Argentina.

According to Bitso, supported transactions are from US dollars via Circle’s USDC stablecoin, with this enabled through the crypto exchange’s direct connection with the local banking system.

The alliance means companies worldwide will be able to make international payments to the region without the need of an intermediary. Leveraging blockchain technology in such transactions greatly improves the settlement speed and overall costs of cross-border payments and remittances, Bitso SVP of Institutional Product Santiago Alvarado said.

Stellar’s push in USDC payments

Stellar’s collaboration with Bitso comes on the back of increased adoption of its technology in cross-border remittances.

Earlier this month, the Stellar Foundation Development announced it had partnered with crypto ATM provider Coinme to allow users send and receive USDC on Stellar. The service will be available across all Coinme platforms.

On July 17, Stellar revealed another collaboration for USDC, this time partnering with cross-border remittance app HoneyComb to enable anyone across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, and the UK to withdraw cash with USDC balances. The service will be available at all supported MoneyGram locations in these countries.

XLM, the native Stellar token, was up 13% in the past 24 hours at $0.14 following the news and as Ripple’s XRP pumped by 8% to above $0.80.