Stablecoins can speed up settlement, but remittances remain expensive because money collection, FX conversion, licensing and local payouts still depend on fragmented financial systems

Only one step of a typical remittance chain actually uses a blockchain, the author argues: a Dubai-to-Manila transfer can involve six steps converting dirhams to dollars to USDC to pesos. Sending $200 costs 6.36% versus 9.67% in 2009, against a UN target of 3% by 2030. Tokenised balances could collapse fifty prefunded accounts into one rebalanceable pool, but dealers capture the savings. Examples cited: Félix Pago's $200m raise, OpenFX, Nium, Bridge at $1.1bn, Better Money's $10m, Conduit's $36m and Palla's $14.5m. Stablecoins fix plumbing, not law or licensing. The real bottlenecks remain money collection, licences, compliance and local payout networks.

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