Fintech and stablecoin corporations ought to contemplate trying outdoors of the US-to-Mexico hall to win the $174 billion Latin America remittance market, in accordance with a Bybit govt.
Most corporations have targeted too narrowly on the $61.8 billion US-Mexico remittance market and are lacking faster-growing corridors between the US and Central America, in addition to remittances inside Latin America, Bybit Chief Advertising Officer Claudia Wang mentioned in a put up on X on Sunday.
“The corridors that look ‘scorching’ proper now will not be the corridors most fintechs are optimized for,” she mentioned, citing Venezuela-to-Colombia, Argentina-to-Bolivia and Spain-to-Ecuador as examples. The non-US-to-Mexico remittance market stands at about $112 billion.
“Cease treating LATAM as one market,” Wang mentioned, including that she spent six months learning the area:
“Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia — every wants totally different licenses, totally different rails, totally different stablecoins, totally different advertising. The businesses profitable right here run country-specific stacks, not regional ones.”
Remittances all through the Americas have largely been facilitated by banking rails by corporations reminiscent of Western Union and MoneyGram. Nonetheless, each unveiled plans to roll out stablecoin infrastructure following the passage of the GENIUS Act in July.
Western Union is constructing its personal US dollar-backed stablecoin, USDPT, which is within the last phases of readiness and anticipated to launch this month.
Crypto-native corporations reminiscent of Binance, Bitso, Strike and Felix Pago are additionally competing within the LATAM remittance market, as are banks and retail and telecommunications corporations reminiscent of Walmart and Tigo, Wang famous.
US immigration coverage is influencing LATAM remittance market
Wang famous that the US-to-Central America hall “is exploding,” with remittances in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala rising 19%, 18% and 15%, respectively, in 2025.
In contrast, remittances within the oversaturated US-Mexico hall fell 4.5% to $61.8 billion.
Wang mentioned the divergence between rising Central American flows and Mexico’s decline is the results of US immigration coverage: “Migrants from Central America are sending extra house — quicker, bigger quantities — to hedge in opposition to deportation danger.”
In contrast, Mexico has a “extra established and documented diaspora” and thus “does not present the identical panic-send habits,” Wang mentioned.
High remittance corridors in 2025. Supply: Claudia Wang
As for the non-US corridors, Wang famous that whereas a few of these remittance markets are small in absolute phrases, they’re “barely served” by US cash transmitter operators and “virtually untouched by crypto rails.”
Latin People need to maintain stablecoins, not simply transfer them
Wang additionally mentioned many Western fintechs haven’t realized that in LATAM, the “killer app” is holding stablecoins, not shifting them.
“Customers do not need to ‘use’ stablecoins for a transaction and convert again to native foreign money. They need to maintain {dollars}. The transaction is the facet impact.”
Wang mentioned there isn’t a clear winner within the LATAM remittance market, including that “the fintechs that win the following decade on this area will mix native rails, stablecoin liquidity, belief and closed-loop economics — remit → maintain → spend → earn.”
Associated: Australia draft funds imaginative and prescient eyes stablecoin interoperability
She added that many fintech corporations within the house have constructed their merchandise for the standard 25-year-old crypto dealer, not the typical remittance sender, who’s 40 to 60 years outdated and presumably just isn’t tech-savvy.
Profile of the imagined LATAM remittance person (left) vs precise person (proper). Supply: Claudia Wang
“In case your product makes a 50-year-old manufacturing unit employee in New Jersey assume for greater than 30 seconds earlier than sending $300 to his mother in Honduras, you have already misplaced,” Wang mentioned:
“The crypto business has spent 5 years optimizing for the fallacious person. The retail remittance buyer in LATAM does not need to ‘self-custody.’ They need to know the cash landed.”
Journal: Singapore isn’t a ‘crypto hub’ — it’s one thing higher: StraitsX CEO
