Are stablecoins for remittances truly cheaper? Bank of Italy tests say no

The promise of stablecoins as a cheaper, faster alternative to traditional money transfers is one of crypto’s most repeated selling points. But a new study from the Bank of Italy, published on July 30, 2026, puts that claim to a serious empirical test — and the results are considerably more complicated than the narrative suggests. Using actual transfers of 200 USDC across ten real corridors, researchers found that stablecoins for remittances neither consistently cut costs nor guaranteed fast delivery.

Key takeaways

• The Bank of Italy’s mystery shopping study tested 200 USDC transfers across ten corridors between Italy and Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, the UAE, and Japan.
• Stablecoins did not offer a systematic cost advantage: total transfer costs ranged from 0.30% to almost 9% of the amount sent.
• The on-chain leg of the transfer had only a marginal impact on total costs — the real friction lies at the entry and exit points.
• Settlement speed depended heavily on local payment infrastructure: under 20 minutes where instant payment systems exist, one to two business days where they do not.
• On/off-ramp frictions were identified as the primary driver of both cost and delay.

How the Bank of Italy Put Stablecoins to the Test

The study, published as part of the Bank of Italy’s “Markets, infrastructures, payment systems” series, took a hands-on approach: a mystery shopping exercise in which researchers actually sent money and measured what happened. The method cuts through theoretical claims and gets to the lived experience of a real remittance sender.

Mystery Shopping Methodology

Rather than modeling hypothetical scenarios, the Bank of Italy’s team conducted transfers of 200 USDC — a common, dollar-pegged stablecoin — and tracked every stage of the process, from converting fiat currency into USDC on one end to cashing out on the other. That end-to-end view is what makes the findings significant: it doesn’t just measure the blockchain leg in isolation.

Scope of Transfer Corridors

The exercise covered ten corridors, all originating in Italy and connecting to five destination countries: Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, and Japan. The selection spans very different economic and payment environments — from countries with advanced real-time payment infrastructure to those still relying on slower standard processing systems. That deliberate diversity is central to understanding why results varied so widely.

Cost Efficiency of Stablecoin Transfers

Stablecoins do not offer a systematic cost advantage over traditional remittance channels. That is the study’s clearest headline finding, and it challenges a widely held assumption in the crypto payments space.

Variation in Transfer Costs

Total costs across the ten corridors ranged from as low as 0.30% to almost 9% of the amount transferred. That upper end is not trivially different from — and in some corridors may actually exceed — what established money transfer operators charge. The spread itself tells a story: stablecoin-based remittances are not a uniformly cheap option. The experience depends heavily on which corridor is used and which service providers are involved at each end.

Marginal Impact of On-Chain Transfers

Perhaps the most analytically important finding is where costs do not come from. The on-chain portion of the transfer — moving USDC across the blockchain — had only a marginal impact on total costs. This means the blockchain itself is not the bottleneck. What drives fees is everything surrounding it: acquiring the stablecoin, converting it back to local fiat, and navigating the domestic financial infrastructure at origin and destination.

This has real strategic implications. Improving blockchain throughput or reducing gas fees would do relatively little to make stablecoin remittances more competitive. The inefficiency lives in the plumbing around the chain, not inside it.

Speed and Settlement of Stablecoin Remittances

Speed tells a similarly mixed story. Settlement times were not uniformly fast — they were highly heterogeneous, shaped almost entirely by the quality of domestic payment infrastructure at the receiving end.

Impact of Domestic Payment Infrastructure

Where a destination country has modern instant payment systems in place, the full end-to-end transfer completed in less than 20 minutes. Where those systems are absent and standard bank transfers are required instead, the same process stretched to one or two business days. The stablecoin itself contributes little to that gap — the local last mile does.

The Role of On/Off-Ramp Frictions

The study is unambiguous on this point: on/off-ramp frictions are the primary source of both cost and delay. Buying USDC with euros and then converting USDC into pesos, reais, or dirhams at the destination involves intermediaries, exchange spreads, compliance checks, and local banking dependencies. Each of those steps adds time and expense — and none of them are solved by a faster blockchain.

This is where the broader implication becomes hard to ignore. The crypto payments industry has long framed infrastructure improvements — faster chains, lower fees, wider DeFi liquidity — as the path to displacing traditional remittance corridors. The Bank of Italy’s evidence suggests that framing misidentifies the actual problem. Until on/off-ramp access is seamless, regulated, and cheap in every corridor, the blockchain efficiency argument doesn’t fully translate to the end user’s wallet.

For countries like Brazil and the UAE, where real-time payment rails are already mature, stablecoin transfers can be genuinely fast. But for corridors where local infrastructure is weaker, the technology’s speed advantage effectively evaporates before the recipient ever sees the funds. That gap — between the chain’s theoretical speed and the real-world settlement clock — is where stablecoin adoption in remittances will ultimately be won or lost.

FAQ

What did the Bank of Italy study analyze regarding stablecoins?

The study examined whether cross-border transfers made with stablecoins are more efficient in terms of cost and speed than traditional remittance channels, using a mystery shopping exercise to test real transfers across ten international corridors.

Which stablecoin and amount were used in the Bank of Italy’s mystery shopping exercise?

The study used transfers of 200 USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin, to test real-world remittance efficiency across the selected corridors.

Did stablecoins prove to be cheaper than traditional remittance methods in the study?

No. The Bank of Italy found that stablecoins do not offer a systematic cost advantage, with total transfer costs ranging from 0.30% to almost 9% of the amount transferred depending on the corridor and service providers involved.

How did domestic payment infrastructures affect remittance settlement times?

Where instant payment systems exist, settlement was completed in less than 20 minutes. In corridors requiring standard bank transfers, the process extended to one or two business days, making local infrastructure — not blockchain speed — the determining factor.

Article produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the editorial team.