Cross-border

The traditional method of moving money abroad has always been associated with high transfer and money conversion rates, unnecessary delays, annoying paperwork and bureaucracy, but the rise of cryptocurrency as a competing instrument seems to provide many easy alternatives.

Users of localbitcoins.com, a popular cryptocurrency exchange platform, in over 15 countries from different continents are crying helplessly after being denied access to withdraw their Bitcoins from their personal accounts. This event came as a result of a surprise blackmail from the EU Commission.

Several developed countries, like the United States, China, Russia and others, see Bitcoin and other digital currencies as speculative tools. They think investors will only become rich or benefit if they invest and wait for probably like five, ten, fifteen or even twenty years along the line. Nevertheless, some countries look at cryptocurrencies as a new, fast, secure and easy means of payment, especially when carrying out cross-border payments. In this technological era, smaller countries globally have continued to embrace the use of blockchain and cryptocurrency.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), in collaboration with the Central Bank of Canada (BoC), experimented with making cross-border (international) financial payments using blockchain technology and CBDC, a digital fiat money created under the government’s regulation. This initiative will help increase payment efficiencies.

International Business Machines (IBM) Corp. wants financial institutions to join the revolutionary technology known as blockchain. IBM has made the process of transacting funds across borders very easy. It has developed a real-time, global payments network for regulated banks and other financial institutions to enable international transactions and foreign exchange in over 70 crypto-friendly countries.

Blockchain can be applied to many aspects of financial field, including cross-border payments, customer identities management, payments security, and different types of transactions. Italy has already started to implement some of new technologies that help to reduce expensive legal procedures.