Fintech and stablecoin firms should consider looking outside of the US-to-Mexico corridor to win the $174 billion Latin America remittance market, according to a Bybit executive.<\/p>\n
Most firms have focused too narrowly on the $61.8 billion US-Mexico remittance market and are missing faster-growing corridors between the US and Central America, as well as remittances within Latin America, Bybit Chief Marketing Officer Claudia Wang said<\/a> in a post on X on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe corridors that look \u2018hot\u2019 right now are not the corridors most fintechs are optimized for,\u201d she said, citing Venezuela-to-Colombia, Argentina-to-Bolivia and Spain<\/a>-to-Ecuador as examples. The non-US-to-Mexico remittance market stands at about $112 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cStop treating LATAM as one market,\u201d Wang said, adding that she spent six months studying the region:<\/p>\n \u201cBrazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia \u2014 each needs different licenses, different rails, different stablecoins, different marketing. The companies winning here run country-specific stacks, not regional ones.\u201d\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Remittances throughout the Americas have largely been facilitated through banking rails by firms such as Western Union<\/a> and MoneyGram. However, both unveiled plans to roll out stablecoin infrastructure<\/a> following the passage of the GENIUS Act in July.<\/p>\n Western Union is building its own US dollar-backed stablecoin, USDPT, which is in the final stages of readiness and expected to launch this month.<\/p>\n Crypto-native companies such as Binance, Bitso, Strike and Felix Pago are also competing in the LATAM remittance market, as are banks and retail and telecommunications<\/a> companies such as Walmart and Tigo, Wang noted.<\/p>\n Wang noted that the US-to-Central America corridor \u201cis exploding,\u201d with remittances in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala rising 19%, 18% and 15%, respectively, in 2025.<\/p>\n By contrast, remittances in the oversaturated US-Mexico corridor fell 4.5% to $61.8 billion.<\/p>\n Wang said the divergence between rising Central American flows and Mexico\u2019s decline is the result of US immigration policy: \u201cMigrants from Central America are sending more home \u2014 faster, larger amounts \u2014 to hedge against deportation risk.\u201d<\/p>\n By contrast, Mexico has a \u201cmore established and documented diaspora\u201d and thus \u201cdoesn’t show the same panic-send behavior,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n \n Top remittance corridors in 2025. Source: <\/em>Claudia Wang<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n As for the non-US corridors, Wang noted that while some of these remittance markets are small in absolute terms, they are \u201cbarely served\u201d by US money transmitter operators and \u201calmost untouched by crypto rails.\u201d<\/p>\n Wang also said many Western fintechs haven\u2019t realized that in LATAM, the \u201ckiller app\u201d is holding stablecoins, not moving them.<\/p>\n \u201cUsers don’t want to \u2018use’ stablecoins for a transaction and convert back to local currency. They want to hold dollars. The transaction is the side effect.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Wang said there is no clear winner in the LATAM remittance market, adding that \u201cthe fintechs that win the next decade in this region will combine local rails, stablecoin liquidity, trust and closed-loop economics \u2014 remit \u2192 hold \u2192 spend \u2192 earn.\u201d<\/p>\n Related: <\/strong><\/em>Australia draft payments vision eyes stablecoin interoperability<\/strong><\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n She added that many fintech companies in the space have built their products for the typical 25-year-old crypto trader, not the average remittance sender, who is 40 to 60 years old and presumably is not tech-savvy.<\/p>\n \n Profile of the imagined LATAM remittance user (left) vs actual user (right). Source: <\/em>Claudia Wang<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIf your product makes a 50-year-old factory worker in New Jersey think for more than 30 seconds before sending $300 to his mom in Honduras, you’ve already lost,\u201d Wang said:<\/p>\n \u201cThe crypto industry has spent five years optimizing for the wrong user. The retail remittance customer in LATAM doesn’t want to \u2018self-custody.\u2019 They want to know the money landed.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Magazine: <\/strong><\/em>Singapore isn\u2019t a \u2018crypto hub\u2019 \u2014 it\u2019s something better: StraitsX CEO<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\nUS immigration policy is influencing LATAM remittance market<\/h2>\n
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<\/figure>\nLatin Americans want to hold stablecoins, not just move them<\/h2>\n
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