The exchange considers the good news as an important advance in financial inclusion.
The Bitso subsidiary responsible for the change is NVIO Pagos, an electronic payment funds institution that since 2021 bases its operations in Mexico, which will be connected to the Interbank Electronic Payment System (SPEI)
Bitso, one of the most important cryptocurrency platforms in Latin America, announced the change of its payment system in Mexico. The old traditional system was based on the Mexican financial system, which did not seem to be entirely consistent with cryptocurrency transactions. Some operations did not end up being accepted by most of the world’s central banks.
NVIO Pagos will be connected to the Interbank Electronic Payment System (SPEI), a real-time settlement system (LBTR) of Banco de México, the country’s monetary regulator, which until now facilitated transfers of resources from banks, brokerage houses, among other financial institutions.
NVIO has become the first company to connect directly to SPEI as a fintech company. It was also the first to obtain authorization from the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) to operate in Mexico under the Fintech Law scheme, in January 2020.
In this regard, Felipe Vallejo, Global Director of Regulation and Corporate Affairs at Bitso, told the Mexican media outlet El Economista the following:
“This transition represents a big step for Bitso in our mission to make crypto useful through a simpler, less frictionless user transaction experience. With this connection, transfers will be processed more quickly, with the support of NVIO.”
A new way to complete transactions
With this, Bitso complements its cryptocurrency operation service with NVIO Payments, which will function from now on as the transaction processor in Mexican pesos.
Prior to this advance, Bitso and NVIO Pagos had carried out interbank operations through the STP provider. However, the crypto exchange plans to fully finalize the legal and technical move to direct connection by the end of this year.
He also added a few comments about the adoption of cryptocurrencies in Mexico:
“We are excited to see that the adoption of cryptocurrencies in Mexico is increasingly linked to use cases that improve the lives of our users, which contributes to our mission of making crypto useful.”
The SPEI system was developed to facilitate payments between financial institutions, in addition to allowing them to offer secure and efficient payment services to Mexican consumers. SPEI seeks to offer anyone with a bank account in Mexico a 24/7 solution to carry out transactions with real-time payment confirmation.
The rise of Bitso in Latin America
Bitso is one of the few cryptocurrency exchange companies and the only one in Latin America to obtain a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) license.
It is the tool provided by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC), a sovereign agency that has developed one of the most advanced frameworks to regulate trading in cryptocurrencies.
According to Statisa data, Bitso is among the most used exchanges in Latin America, along with Binance and Crypto.com. Although the adoption of cryptocurrencies ETH and BTC has been massive in Latin America so far this year, the activity was concentrated in six countries: Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and Chile, according to the count between January 1 and April 4 this year.
As can be seen, there are four countries in which Bitso operates, including Colombia. In Mexico alone, Bitso accumulates 40% of downloads and preferences in terms of reference exchange.
By Audy Castaneda
