San Francisco-based Ripple says it plans to launch a significant expansion of its XRP remittance platform in Latin America this year.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has said the company is testing its crypto-based remittance network called On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) in both Brazil and Argentina. Now, a new move from the crypto exchange and Ripple partner Bitso could help make XRP remittances in Argentina a reality.
Bitso, the largest crypto exchange in Mexico, announced its expansion in Argentina.
“In Bitso, we like to build bridges. Today, we build a digital bridge between Mexico and Argentina. Like our users in Mexico, we want Argentines to enjoy simple, global, and transparent financial services.”
In October of 2019, Ripple announced that it was spearheading an investment round in Bitso.
“As Ripple expands ODL in Latin America, so too will our partnership with Bitso.”
Bitso is already powering US to Mexico remittances using XRP. In the process, the exchange’s XRP pair with the Mexican peso has surged ahead of Bitcoin in daily volume.
However, it remains to be seen how many regulatory hurdles Ripple will have to navigate to bring ODL to Argentina. The country continues to struggle with inflation and is pushing to increase the use of its peso in order to save it from further devaluation.
In line with this effort, the Central Bank of Argentina has banned the use of credit cards to purchase cryptocurrencies. In addition, the government introduced the dollar tax, forcing citizens to pay an additional 30% in tax for transactions made in a foreign currency.
