Guatemala's Largest Bank Adopts Stablecoin Rails for U.S. Remittance Payments

4 days ago

Guatemala's largest bank, Banco Industrial, has adopted blockchain steadfast SukuPay's stablecoin rails for customers to nonstop remittances from the U.S.

SukuPay volition let Guatemalans to person funds from the U.S. for a level 99 cent interest utilizing lone a telephone fig wrong their Banco National mobile app Zigi, according to an emailed announcement connected Wednesday.

"This integration marks the archetypal clip a crypto-native protocol has gone unrecorded astatine this extent wrong a top-tier Latin American retail bank," SukuPay said successful the announcement.

SukuPay's developer Suku unveiled the outgo instrumentality successful April 2024 arsenic a mode of allowing cross-border wealth transfers without the request to make a crypto wallet. It is built connected Ethereum scaling web Polygon and uses the USDC stablecoin.

Stablecoins, present a astir $230 cardinal plus class, are 1 of crypto’s astir applicable occurrence stories. Pegged to fiat currencies similar the U.S. dollar, they’ve go fashionable tools for payments, remittances and savings—especially successful processing countries wherever banking entree is constricted oregon section currencies are volatile.

SukuPay’s integration into Banco Industrial underlines the inclination however blockchain-based rails are softly entering the fiscal mainstream, not arsenic concern vehicles but arsenic invisible plumbing for real-world wealth movement.

Remittances to Guatemala fig astir $21 cardinal annually, which is astir 20% of the country's GDP.

Only 35% of Guatemalan adults had entree to ceremonial slope accounts arsenic of 2022, according to the World Bank's Findex Data, making it a premier marketplace for tools that tin amended fiscal inclusion.

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