Banks and financial institutions all over the world are starting to embrace cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. This time, the Argentinian bank Banco Masventas (BMV), will be using Bitcoin so as to replace SWIFT.
Argentinian Bank Embraces Bitcoin
The bank has decided to establish a partnership with Bitex, an important cryptocurrency exchange that operates in Latin America. In this way, the bank will allow its customers to send and receive international payments using Bitcoin.
The main intention is to reduce costs associated with international transactions. Moreover, Banco Masventas will be upgrading its smartphone-based services and lower other bureaucratic costs.
According to Bitex’s chief marketing officer, Manuel Beaudroit, this is the first time that a domestic bank uses bitcoin for cross-border payments.
In a statement, Jose Dakak, one of the main shareholder of Masventas, said:
“One of the actions was to contract Bitex as a strategic partner in the implementation of the Bitex platform for payments and collections operations for our clients abroad.”
Mr. Beaudroit, explained:
“The customers will ask the bank to do an international payment, and the bank uses Bitex as a provider. For the customer, it’s transparent, they don’t touch, they don’t see the bitcoin. We are a provider for them, and they are not touching bitcoin.”
Manuel Beaudroit, informed the partnerhsip on Twitter.
Buen día! Feliz de poder salir oficialmente con esta noticia! @BancoMasventas y @bitexla
se unen para ofrecer pagos internacionales usando #bitcoin a sus clientes –
A Bank In Argentina Is Now Using Bitcoin for Cross-Border Payments https://t.co/qOFvu93cLB via @CoinDesk— manuel beaudroit (@mbeaudroit) May 22, 2018
At CryptStorm we were able to contact Bitex, and Federico Darnond, Business Development Manager, told us that ‘the clients will be able to transfer money to Chile, Brazil, Mexico, USA, Europe and Asia using local currency from their bank account.”
“This will allow the bank to reduce costs, and more important, process small transactions (USD0 – USD10K) using Bitcoin’s protocol (without being exposed to price risks) something that with the banking network is not viable from an economic and operative perspective,” Mr. Darnond explained.
Other Banks Using Bitcoin
Some time ago, we wrote at CryptStorm about the German Bank Bitbond that is using Bitcoin to perform international transactions. In this way, clients will be able to transfer loans anywhere in the globe just by using Bitcoin.
Clients are able to hold the loans in digital tokens, including Bitcoin. Some seconds or minutes later, they exchange the money back to local currency, avoiding fluctuations and risks involved with hedging virtual currencies.
Radoslav Albrecth, Bitbond Founder, said:
“Traditional money transfers are relatively costly due to currency exchange fees, and can take up to a few days. With Bitbond, payments work independently of where customers are. Via internet it is very, very quick and fees are low.”
Different companies are starting to use virtual currencies and blockchain technology so as to reduce transaction costs and times.
Ripple is one of the most known platforms competing with SWIFT. With its products and services, including the cryptocurrency XRP and the xRapid network, transactions can be processed very fast and with almost no associated fees.
