Ripple’s XRP-powered cross-border payment product, On-Demand Liquidity (ODL), is moving nearly 10% of the remittance volume from the US to Mexico, according to Daniel Vogel, chief executive of the Mexican crypto exchange Bitso.
The US-Mexico remittance corridor is one of the busiest in the world, with Pew Research Center reporting that more than $30 billion was sent south across the border in 2017. Those figures indicate XRP is currently responsible for about $3 billion in annual remittances from the US to Mexico.
Vogel says that Bitso, a Ripple partner, has had to chisel out their place in the regulatory landscape.
“It’s been a long journey for us navigating the regulatory landscape in Mexico. We’ve played a strong hand in shaping it as well. Today, Mexico has a… comprehensive set of regulations if you want to build a crypto business in the country. I am very pleased that we’ve been able to secure meetings with folks at basically every relevant regulatory institution in Mexico or a regulatory agency in Mexico. We have always found individuals in each of those institutions that are willing to listen and who are intrigued by the technology.”
Vogel also highlights that users can easily jump in and out of crypto using Bitso’s remittance rails.
“In our case, we’re assisting in the conversion of US Dollars to Mexico Pesos where the digital asset XRP is a bridge currency. We’re processing close to 10% of the remittances from the US to Mexico through ODL.”
The exchange is now in the early stages of a similar process in Argentina, where they launched operations eight months ago. More than 100,000 Argentinians have started using Bitso, making it the largest exchange in the Latin American country.
Says Vogel,
“We believe that in Latin America you have an immediate area of opportunity for building real use cases… because trust in financial institutions is eroded, access is very limited and there’s just a very big need for these financial services and products. We really believe that a radically improved financial system is being created on top of this technology.”
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