The Bitcoin Company has unveiled its new Remittances API, allowing individuals and financial institutions to send instant payments to any bank account in Mexico and Brazil in under 1 second, according to a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine. This API marks the company’s expansion into international remittances, with plans to extend services to the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Africa soon.
We’re excited to launch our new Remittances API powering instant, cross-border payments for any app 🚀
One easy integration to send Mexican Pesos 🇲🇽 or Brazilian Real 🇧🇷 to local bank accounts in under 1 second⚡
More currencies & countries coming soon!https://t.co/jiAeh1NhRF pic.twitter.com/R63Z3mNnb3
— The Bitcoin Company (@theBTCco) March 22, 2024
“Disrupting the remittance market is a key milestone in our roadmap to provide easy to use Bitcoin-native financial services and has always been a compelling application for the Bitcoin network,” said Ben Price, Founder and CEO of The Bitcoin Company.” With Bitcoin, payments can be cheap, instant, inclusive, and global.”
By leveraging the Bitcoin network, The Bitcoin Company’s Remittance API offers a cost-effective alternative to traditional banking rails like SWIFT, reducing international remittance costs significantly. The API communicates with local payment networks in Mexico (SPEI) and Brazil (Pix), ensuring funds are deposited instantly into recipients’ bank accounts.
The remittance market in Mexico and Brazil has historically relied on costly services like Western Union and MoneyGram, which charge high fees. According to the World Bank, remittance payments to Mexico and Brazil cost 3.01% and 4.59%, respectively, with an average international remittance cost of 6.18%. The Bitcoin Company’s API disrupts this landscape by providing low-cost, instant, and 24/7 cross-border payments.
“Cross-border payments as they exist today are broken,” Price continued. “Traditional remittance providers like Western Union are taking advantage of the world’s most desperate populations by charging exorbitantly high fees for sending/receiving money. Cross border payments are now trivial with our new Remittances API that leverages the Bitcoin network. Our plans include expanding to more regions and currencies to service both business and consumer payments. We’re so happy to help enable other developers to turn on low-cost, cross-border, instant payments in their applications with a simple API integration.”
This launch aligns with The Bitcoin Company’s vision to provide easy-to-use, Bitcoin-native financial services and build developer-friendly infrastructure connecting Bitcoin with legacy financial systems. More information about the Remittance API can be found here.