A Bank In Argentina Is Now Using Bitcoin for Cross-Border Payments

Argentina's Banco Masventas has revealed that starting Monday it will enable customers to send cross-border payments using bitcoin.

A partnership with Latin America-focused exchange startup Bitex, founded in 2014, the news finds the regional bank using bitcoin as a payments rail in international transactions as an alternative to Swift.

Bitex chief marking officer Manuel Beaudroit told CoinDesk that the startup believes this marks the first time that a domestic bank has adopted bitcoin for cross-border payments.

In statements, Jose Dakak, principal shareholder of Masventas, credited the move to a broader drive by the bank to enhance its digital, smartphone-based services, as well as to lower the bank's cost of service.

"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.

While no real-world transactions have been launched yet, the bank will soon use bitcoin for real customer transactions, Beaudroit said.

"The customers will ask the bank to do an international payment, and the bank uses Bitex as a provider. For the customer, it's transparent, they don't touch, they don't see the bitcoin. We are a provider for them, and they are not touching bitcoin."

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