Central Bank of Italy: USDC costs up to 9% on some remittance channels

Central Bank of Italy research: Stabiloins have no advantage in remittance costs

Researchers from the Central Bank of Italy (Banca d'Italia) implemented real transfers of USDC through 10 international remittance channels in March 2026. The results found that remittances based on staboins do not have a sustained cost advantage compared with traditional remittance services.

This research was published in the form of "Markets, Infrastructure and Payment Systems Paper No. 86" in July 2026. It is the first known study conducted by a major central bank on the cost of stablecoin remittances in many countries."Mysterious Shopping" survey. Authors include Alberto di Jorio, Enrica di Stefano, Michel Mascoli and George Trebeski.

These remittance channels connect Italy with Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, United Arab Emirates and Japan, and most pairing directions are two-way. The transaction will take place on March 24 and March 26, 2026. The transfer amount of 200 USDC was chosen to be consistent with the World Bank's Global Remittance Price standard. World Bank data for the first quarter of 2025 shows that the global average remittance cost is approximately 6.4%, which is more than twice the 2030 target of 3% set by the G20 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10.c.

Cost drivers: Import and export links

Each transfer is divided into five stages: the first stage deposits the local fiat currency into a cryptocurrency exchange; the second stage converts the fiat currency into USDC; the third stage sends the USDC to the recipient's exchange wallet through on-chain transactions; the fourth stage, the recipient sells the USDC as local fiat currency; and the fifth stage, the fiat currency is withdrawn into the recipient's bank account. Among all remittance channels, on-chain transfers are the cheapest part, accounting for only 0.4% of the total transfer on average. In the Brazil-Italy corridor, this ratio is as low as 0.01%. Exchange transaction fees, foreign exchange spreads, and legal currency replenishment and withdrawal fees constitute almost the entire cost of each test channel.

Total costs range from 0.3% for the Italia-Argentina corridor to approximately 9% for the Argentina-Italy and United Arab Emirates-Italy corridors. Among them, the data from Italy to Argentina needs special explanation: this calculation uses the official retail exchange rate of the Central Bank of Argentina, and this exchange rate is different from the actual market effective exchange rate used in cryptocurrency transactions. The peso exchange rate in cryptocurrencies is higher than the official benchmark, so this lower apparent cost partly reflects measurement bias under Argentina's multiple exchange rate system. If parallel market exchange rates are used, the reporting costs of the channel will increase significantly. The cost of the United Arab Emirates to Italy route was as high as about 9%, because the only replenishment method available to the sender at that time was a credit card, which required an additional 3.8% handling fee.

Compared to Wise, one of the world's largest money transfer operators, USDC transfers cost less in three channels: Italy to Argentina, Italy to South Africa, and Brazil to Italy. The gap is most obvious from Brazil to Italy: USDC costs are 2.21%, while Wise costs on the same route range from 4.68% to 4.89%. Among the other four channels, USDC costs higher than Wise: Argentina to Italy, Italy to United Arab Emirates, United Arab Emirates to Italy, and Italy to Brazil. South Africa has the highest World Bank average for global remittance prices in the sample (15.23%), while USDC costs 5.44% in that direction. Even if the cost of stablecoin itself is not low by international standards, this absolute gap is still significant.

Speed depends on local banking infrastructure

Settlement times vary significantly depending on the domestic payment infrastructure of countries. In Italy, Brazil and Argentina, these countries have instant payment systems that process legal tender transfers, and the entire five-step process can be completed in 20 minutes. Brazil's PIX system has an average settlement time of only 3 seconds (according to data released by the International Monetary Fund in 2023). South Africa relies on standard bank transfers during the replenishment and withdrawal phases, resulting in end-to-end settlement times of one to two working days. Therefore, in the South African channel, the speed advantage usually enjoyed by stablecoins does not exist at all.

Japan cannot conduct the same assessment as other channels. Local regulations restrict access to retail USDC to one domestic operator, and the operator is not allowed to transfer funds directly to foreign exchanges. As a result, researchers had to use unmanaged wallets as an intermediate step, an approach described by the paper as incompatible with the ordinary retail user scenario.

The paper concluded that stablecoins are actually supplements rather than substitutes for domestic instant payment infrastructure. The paper views regulatory design as the primary factor in determining whether stablecoin transfers are practical and affordable to ordinary users: a highly strict regulatory framework will increase costs, reduce the number of available operators, and push users to offshore platforms; while a comprehensive ban will channel demand into unregulated channels without eliminating demand. The paper also pointed out that the biggest potential efficiency improvement comes from the ability of recipients to consume stablecoins directly in the real economy, which will completely eliminate the fiat currency conversion step and eliminate export-link costs that currently constitute a major part of total transfer costs.