Bank of Italy Study Finds Stablecoin Remittances Show No Systematic Cost Advantage

A Bank of Italy study released in July 2026 tested 200 USDC remittances across 10 bidirectional payment corridors linking Italy with Brazil, Argentina, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and South Africa.

“Researchers executed real transfers of 200 USDC across ten corridors linking Italy with Argentina, Brazil, South Africa”

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Researchers found total remittance costs ranged from 0.30% to nearly 9%, while the on-chain portion averaged only 0.4% of the total transaction cost.

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The study reported that transfers involving Italy’s TIPS, Brazil’s Pix and Argentina’s Transferencias 3.0 finished in under 20 minutes, while South African routes took one or two business days.

It also described a Japan-to-Italy problem where regulatory limits required an unhosted wallet and fragmented transactions, making the process unsuitable for a direct timing comparison.

The authors concluded that stablecoins showed “no systematic cost advantage” over traditional channels, even as they said the blockchain leg took less than 15 minutes in seven of eight directly comparable corridors.

The Bank of Italy study said most expenses and delays came from fiat on- and off-ramp frictions rather than blockchain execution itself, with exchange and currency-conversion charges making up the majority of total remittance cost.

In the same experiment, blockchain transaction fees were only a small portion, while complete settlement depended on the banking systems used to fund exchanges and withdraw local currency.

Banca d'Italia

The report compared its results to the World Bank’s global average remittance cost of 6.65% and found stablecoin transfers were cheaper in most corridors examined.

However, it found stablecoin transfers were less expensive than Wise in only three of seven comparable corridors, while they were more expensive in four, including both UAE routes and Italy to Brazil.

The study also cautioned that “the transfers and Wise simulations occurred on different dates,” limiting like-for-like comparisons.

Banca d’Italia Governor Fabio Panetta’s May assessment, as reflected in the study coverage, was that stablecoins may work in selected corridors but do not provide a universal answer to expensive remittances.

“stablecoins may work in selected corridors but do not provide a universal answer”

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The researchers argued that regulators should improve domestic payment infrastructure and connect fast-payment systems across borders, treating stablecoin rails and domestic instant-payment systems as complements rather than substitutes.

They also warned that the study’s findings “cannot be readily generalized” to every provider or corridor because it covered one stablecoin and a limited number of transactions.

The report’s framing emphasized that stablecoins’ competitiveness depends on corridor-specific exchange pricing, funding methods, and local financial infrastructure, since the on-chain transfer itself was consistently the cheapest phase.

As a result, the next step described in the coverage was broader testing across more tokens, providers, dates and transaction amounts, with full disclosure of exchange spreads, withdrawal costs and local payout times.