Mexico-based crypto exchange, Bitso is focused on the Latin American region and has introduced an initiative that will allow Argentinians to make use of crypto for their daily purchases.
QR payments will be introduced directly into the exchange’s app and these will be interoperable with other platforms that are already using this method in the country.
Payments in Argentina
One of the largest crypto exchanges in Latin America is none other than Bitso and it has about 5 million customers.
Now, the exchange has decided to focus on offering payments in Argentina and in order to do so, it has introduced one of the first QR payment systems that are actually interoperable.
The purpose of doing so is to attract more people in Argentina for using crypto as a means of payment.
The exchange’s customers in the country will be able to use pay with stablecoins, Argentine pesos, ether, or bitcoin to pay at any merchants in the country that offer support for QR code payments.
Depending on the currency that people decide to use, Bitso will deal with the exchange rates and convert the cryptocurrencies in order to deliver them to the merchant in Argentine pesos.
Adoption
While the crypto exchange is planning on expanding this initiative to a number of other countries, it decided to start with Argentina because the country has a high level of adoption when it comes to QR payments.
The company said that last year, QR payments were used by almost 59% of the people in the country, while there are 34% of people in Latin America do so.
It is expected that these numbers will climb to almost 80% in Argentina in the next year. The country is currently trying to deal with the level of high inflation in the economy.
High inflation
In August, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the country climbed to almost 80%, which is considered one of the highest in the Latin American region.
According to projections and estimates, this figure is expected to hit the 100% mark in the country by December.
Furthermore, the people have been forced to turn to stablecoins because their national currency is also facing devaluation due to the political turmoil in the country.
Therefore, Bitso is looking to cash in on this opportunity and it wants to convince people to use its payment capabilities and also benefit from the savings utility of crypto.
In this way, they can avoid the manual exchange of currency when they have to make payments.
The senior VP of products at Bitso, Santiago Alvarado said that this product offering is very important for Argentina because it can benefit the people.
It can help them stay safe from the adverse aspects of the economy, such as currency devaluation and inflation.
He said that Bitso is providing more financial opportunities to the users and this helps it in fulfilling its aim to make cryptocurrencies more useful.
The new product will be rolled out in Argentina from September 27th and it will become available to customers gradually.
