Case Study
How Félix and Bitso Power Faster and Cheaper Remittances in Latin America
Industry
Fintech
Location
United States, Mexico
Cross-border Payments
About
This is Félix & Bitso
Félix
Félix is a Whatsapp-based payments platform that enables U.S.-based Latino immigrants to send money back to their relatives in Latin America. Combining AI and blockchain technology, sending remittances on Félix is meant to be as easy and human as possible.
Bitso
With over 5 million users, Bitso is the largest cryptocurrency platform in Latin America. With operations currently based in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia. As part of its services, Bitso provides on/off ramps currently for clients in Mexico and Colombia and is looking to scale this coverage soon.
Challenge
Remittances: a manual process
In the US, remittances are largely still a manual process. People have to:
- Travel to a money-transfer operator to send or receive a remittance.
- Pay a transaction fee that can cost an average of $10 on a $300 ticket.
- Send or receive their remittances in physical cash, which can present safety concerns.
Yet, remittance senders and recipients go through all this trouble due to lack of more immediate options or hard-wired habits, preferring to talk to a human agent when sending money abroad. But what if there were a way to replicate this human experience via a digital medium, where transaction speeds are near-instantaneous, fees are fractions of a penny, and the entire remittance process is as simple as sending a text?
We're using USDC on the Stellar network, and it just works beautifully for us. Currently the whole remittance process can take up to an hour, sometimes days, starting from the sender going to a store to the beneficiary seeing the deposit. With us, it takes seconds.
Manuel Godoy, Co-founder and CEO, Félix
Solution
Solving the Remittance Riddle
The founders of Félix discovered their solution to the remittance riddle. All it took was the combination of AI, a chat platform well-loved by Latinos in the US, the on/off ramps of Latin America’s largest cryptocurrency platform Bitso, and USDC, a fully-reserved digital dollar stablecoin backed by cash, repo, and short-dated US Treasuries, on the Stellar network.
Cheaper and Faster Remittances for Everyone
- Bitso serves not only more than 5 million individual users, but corporations and institutional clients as well. However, they all face the same issues with traditional remittance flows.
- Traditionally, remittance flows can take a long time, having to go through multiple correspondent banks and different countries. In the end, all of the time consumed and transaction fees often end up being a burden placed directly on the end user.
- Acting on its mission to “make crypto useful,” Bitso saw an opportunity to help their clients move funds quickly and cheaply. Combining the reliability of the world’s leading digital dollar stablecoin and a blockchain’s high speeds and low fees, USDC on the Stellar network was a natural addition to Bitso’s offerings, allowing Bitso customers to send cross-border payments much more quickly and affordably than before.
Access to Stellar On and Off-Ramps
- As a customer of Bitso, Félix has access to USDC, Mexican pesos, and more than 34 other cryptocurrencies available on the platform. Felix can fund its Bitso account either with regular US dollar fiat or USDC.
- Once a Félix user sends a transaction via Whatsapp, those funds are collected as US dollars and converted into USDC once they arrive in Félix’s Bitso account. The USDC can then instantaneously convert into Mexican pesos, which can then travel through local banking rails in Mexico called SPEI.
- SPEI has access to all banks in Mexico, meaning that those remittances are immediately deposited into the recipient’s bank account – all in just a few seconds.
An Easy and Approachable Experience
- Transactions on Félix happen over Whatsapp, which boasts a 64% penetration rate in Latin America and even surpassing 80% in countries such as Costa Rica and a similarly high penetration rate with Hispanics in the US. Whatsapp presents several advantages compared to other chat-based apps: the user experience is simple and people can use it even with a slow connection.
- After texting a message to Félix’s Whatsapp line, the sender is greeted by an AI bot and provides transaction details and who the beneficiary is. Redirected to a secure link by the bot, the sender can make the payment with their debit card. Once the transaction is completed, the sender and beneficiary will receive a remittance receipt through Whatsapp. From start to finish, the entire process takes less than a minute on average.
- Throughout the entire transaction process, from when the user opens Whatsapp to when the funds land in the recipient’s bank account, neither the sender nor receiver knows that these remittances are being powered by the Stellar network or blockchain technology in general.
The Crypto Chronicles
The Remittance Riddle
Results
The Power of On and Off-Ramps
The power of on and off-ramps and USDC on the Stellar network cannot be underestimated. The growth Félix has seen with Bitso has been promising since its launch back in early 2022, with plans from both companies to continue exploring how to expand their product and services to other parts of Latin America.
To further increase access to its on and off-ramps, Bitso is in the process of becoming an anchor on the Stellar network. As an anchor, Bitso will be able to offer its services worldwide to any institution that wants access to USDC on Stellar and a payment corridor to Mexico and, eventually, other countries in LatAm. Bitso also plans to make USDC on Stellar available to its regular consumer customers to further lower the cost of transaction fees.
By sending USDC through Bitso’s US-Mexico payment corridor, Félix has been able to close the digital-to-fiat loop. Having found a winning partnership, Félix wants to become the financial platform for Latinos in the US. In addition to remittances, the company eventually wants to offer the ability to “send now, pay later,” create checking and savings accounts, and apply for loans.
Félix acknowledges that, at the end of the day, its users primarily deal with fiat – they will want to use their cash to make everyday purchases and not necessarily grapple with the concept of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. The company prides itself on providing a seamless user experience that fosters high trust between product and user; to this end, Félix has seen high adoption from demographics that have long had difficulty accessing financial services, such as millennial women and the elderly.
70%
MOM Growth In Transaction Volume
$100K
Week In Usdc On Stellar Transaction Volume
80
User NPS Score
We're using USDC on the Stellar network, and it just works beautifully for us. Currently the whole remittance process can take up to an hour, sometimes days, starting from the sender going to a store to the beneficiary seeing the deposit. With us, it takes seconds.
Manuel Godoy, Co-founder and CEO, Félix
It was an urgent transaction because a family member was in the hospital, so I was trying to send money through various companies simultaneously, but the others were asking too many questions and taking a long time; with Félix Pago, the transaction was effortless and immediate! A life-saver.
Rosa, 2/11/22
I saved time by not going to the bank to withdraw money and then to a store to send it. For every question I had, Félix responds quickly and provides a sense of safety. Thank you so much!
Alejandra, 3/24/22
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