Italy Study Finds No Advantage for Stablecoin Remittances

A recent study by the Bank of Italy found that stablecoin-based remittances do not offer a systematic cost or speed advantage over traditional payment channels. Researchers tested 200 USDC remittances across 10 bidirectional payment corridors linking Italy with Brazil, Argentina, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, and South Africa.

The study compared end-to-end costs and settlement times with traditional remittance services and found that exchange fees and currency conversion made up most of the cost, while blockchain transaction fees represented only a small share. Total costs ranged from 0.3% to nearly 9%, depending on the payment corridor.

Using the World Bank's reported global average remittance cost of 6.65% as a benchmark, the study found that stablecoin transfers were cheaper in most of the payment corridors examined. However, they were less expensive than Wise in only three of seven comparable corridors.