Argentinian Banco Masventas announced that, starting this week, it begin allowing customers to send cross-border transactions using bitcoin, CoinDesk reports. The regional bank entered into an agreement with the Latin American exchange Bitex, founded in 2014, and will use bitcoin as an alternative to Swift.
According to a Bitex representative, this cooperation is the first example of the use of bitcoin by a local bank for cross-border payments.
Jose Dakak, Banco Masvetnas’ principal shareholder, said that the solution will contribute to the development of digital banking, which includes smartphone-based services, and will reduce the cost of servicing cross-border payments.
"One of the actions was to contract Bitex as a strategic partner in the implementation of the Bitex platform for payments and collections operations for our clients abroad," he said.
The bank has not yet conducted transactions using Bitcoin, as the service only went live today.
At the beginning of May, it became known that 4000 new crypto-compatible ATMs are to be installed across Argentina in the near future. The ATMs will be used to both exchange digital money into fiat currency, as well as receive a microcredit (credit card).
By Ekaterina Ulyanova