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Remittances

General concept · Payments, Clearing & Settlement · Last reviewed: September 2026

Remittances are cross-border person-to-person transfers, commonly sent by migrants or other individuals to family members or households in another country.

Explanation

A remittance service can use cash, bank accounts, mobile money, cards, or digital assets at different stages of the transfer. Stablecoins can serve as the intermediate or settlement asset between the sender and recipient sides. The end-to-end outcome still depends on acquisition costs, foreign exchange, local liquidity, compliance requirements, and the recipient's ability to spend or convert the stablecoin.

Boundaries

Remittances are a specific category of cross-border payment centered on transfers between individuals. Business payments and financial-market settlement are separate cross-border use cases.

Why it matters

Remittances are often evaluated on total cost, speed, accessibility, transparency, and the amount ultimately received by the beneficiary.

Example

A worker can fund a remittance in one country, have the provider transmit value using a stablecoin, and pay the recipient in local currency through a local partner.

Related terms

Sources

  1. Cross-Border Retail Payments. Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, Bank for International Settlements, CPMI Papers No. 173, 2018. Standard-setter analysis
  2. Stijn Claessens and Tara Rice. Cross-Border Payment Technologies: Innovations and Challenges. Bank for International Settlements, BIS Papers No. 167, 2026. Institutional research (authors' views)
  3. Tobias Adrian et al.. Understanding Stablecoins. International Monetary Fund, Departmental Paper No. 2025/009, 2025. doi:10.5089/9798229024075.087 Institutional analysis
Methodology · definitions, cadence and source detail