SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — Chat-based remittance technology provider Felix Pago has integrated Circle’s payments technology to enable real-time remittances from the United States to Latin America.
Using blockchain technology, Felix Pago has developed a way for consumers to initiate transactions in WhatsApp, a Meta-owned chat service with broad adoption among Latino communities, that settle into Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) for fast and cost-effective cross-border transfers.
As Jonathan Kleinman, head of partnerships at Felix Pago, explains:
“By leveraging one of the several blockchains that support USDC, our users are able to send money back home at the speed of the WhatsApp messages they are sending to keep in touch with family and friends.
Our work with Circle makes it possible to deliver the benefits of crypto to the millions of hard-working immigrants who make a tremendous effort to support their families but are poorly served by traditional providers and antiquated payment rails.”
During 2021, Latin America and the Caribbean received a record 127.6 billion dollars in remittances, which amounts to an annual growth of 26.0%, the highest registered in the past 20 years, according to a report by the International Development Bank.
However, facilitating cross-border payments through traditional payment rails typically entails multi-day settlement times and complex correspondent banking relationships. The costs of these operations are passed on to consumers by way of high fees and poor exchange rates.
Blockchain technology has enabled an alternative that is orders of magnitude faster. Adoption has been limited by hard-to-navigate consumer-facing interfaces.
Felix Pago’s chat-based solution is a user-friendly, trust-enabling on-ramp built on top of Circle’s stablecoin payments infrastructure.
Felix Technologies Inc. is a technology company founded in 2020 by Manuel Godoy and Bernardo Garcia, two immigrants with the mission to make cross-border payments to LatAm as easy as sending a message on WhatsApp. Felix Pago is backed by leading venture investors including Global Founders Capital, Wollef, H20 Capital, and Switch VC and angel investors including Mike Levinthal and Luis Garza.
SOURCE Felix Pago
