Bitcoin as a cross-border payment in Argentina

In an Argentine bank, bitcoin will replace the possibility of Swift, an incredible novelty for the Crypto currency number 1. Argentine Banco Masventas Bank has announced that it will allow its customers to make cross-border payments with Bitcoin.

The bank, in partnership with the Latin American crypto-startup Bitex, announced this is the first time that a domestic bank uses bitcoin for cross-border payment transactions.

Better services, cheaper Services

This step is driven by an initiative by the bank to improve its digital, smartphone-based services, as well as reduce service costs.

"One of the measures was to entrust Bitex as a strategic partner in the implementation of the Bitex platform for payment transactions and debt collection for our customers abroad."

As this is a first for domestic banking, there are still some problems that need to be resolved. Bitex chief Marketing Officer Manuel Beaudroit explains that customers do not really use Bitcoin, but only the bank and the Exchange act as payment providers. The service will work so that customers ask the bank to make an international transfer. The bank itself uses Bitex as a provider and sends the capital in the form of Bitcoin to the respective country, by replacing it again with Fiat money. The customer himself, so to speak, has no contact with Kryptowährung.

Getting the most out of Bitcoin

It has long been claimed that Bitcoin is far superior to traditional banks in the field of money transfer, especially internationally, as fees and waiting times are extremely long and costly. Compared to the traditional banking system, the transfer via Bitcoin has advantages. So far, Ripple has operated as an "intermediate organ" in the banking process, as the transaction times are much faster than in comparison to bitcoin. However, it becomes exciting when the Lightning network is integrated and almost real-time transactions via Bitcoin are possible.

Patrik Eberle