How to pay overseas suppliers with stablecoins

Up front: the REDFi links in this article are affiliate links, and yes, I earn a commission if you open your account through them. I use the platform, which is why I am writing about it.

Now the part that matters: you can sign up without my link, and I have no problem at all with that. The price is exactly the same either way; going through my link does not cost you a cent more.

The only difference is this: if you go through my link, you have me for any question that comes up afterwards. The setup, your first transfer, which rail suits you, why they asked for a document you were not expecting. That is what you get on top, and it is why this sits at the top rather than in the small print at the end.

Why paying abroad from Latin America is so hard

If you pay suppliers outside your country, you know the feeling: the transfer leaves on a Tuesday, your supplier sees it on Friday, and somewhere in between a few dollars vanished that nobody could explain.

It is not your bank being unusually bad. It is the region. According to the Financial Stability Board, a cross-border person-to-business payment leaving Latin America and the Caribbean costs 2.7% on average. The target the G20 set for 2027 is 1%. We are at triple.

And there is something worse than the price, which is availability. Between 2011 and 2019 correspondent banking relationships —the arrangements that let your local bank pay a bank on the other side of the world— fell by between 13% and 34% depending on the region, with Latin America at the high end of that range. More than half of the banks surveyed across Latin America and the Caribbean now depend on two correspondents or fewer.

Translated: it is not that the route is expensive. It is that there are few routes, and when one goes down your payment sits and waits.

How the stablecoin route actually works

This is where almost everyone gets confused, so let me say it plainly: the stablecoin is not the destination, it is the transport.

Your supplier in Shenzhen does not want USDT. They want yuan in their account. Your contractor in Buenos Aires wants pesos. What the stablecoin solves is not what you get paid in, it is the middle leg: the stretch where the money used to pass through three banks, each charging its own cut and none of them accountable.

The route has three steps and it pays to look at them separately, because each has its own cost:

In. You put dollars or stablecoins into an account that accepts them.
Convert. You move between stablecoin and fiat. This is where the fee is charged, and where the spread hides if you are not looking.
Out. The money lands in your supplier's account through their country's local rail: PIX in Brazil, SPEI in Mexico, SEPA in Europe.

The advantage is not crypto magic. It is that you replace a chain of correspondent banks with a single hop and a local rail. Fewer intermediaries, fewer people charging, fewer points where it can break.

How to convert USDT or USDC to dollars without giving away the spread

If you move large amounts, this is the section that will save you the most money, and it has nothing to do with the fee.

When you swap crypto for dollars there are two costs, and almost everyone only looks at one:

The fee, which comes with a number and you can see it.
The spread, the gap between the real market price and the price you are given. It appears on no line item. You simply receive less.

That is why an exchange advertising "0% commission" can end up costing you more than one charging an explicit 1%. The first one charges you in the price; the second charges you on the invoice. Only one of them lets you compare it.

The test I run before moving anything serious: take the market price at that moment, do the operation with a small amount, and work out how many dollars actually arrived versus how many should have. That difference, as a percentage, is your real cost. Not what the ad says.

Do it with two or three options before committing to one. Half an hour of work tells you more than any comparison article on the internet, this one included.

What REDFi is, and what it is not

REDFi is the platform I use for this. It is a treasury account: it holds dollars and stablecoins in one place and pays out through local rails.

The concrete details, taken from their own documentation:

86 countries for withdrawals to local bank accounts, with rail coverage varying by jurisdiction.
Currencies: USD, EUR, GBP, MXN, BRL and COP.
Stablecoins: USDB, USDC and USDT.
Outbound rails: Fedwire for dollars, SEPA for euros, PIX in Brazil, SPEI in Mexico, Bre-B in Colombia and Faster Payments for pounds.
Timing: deposits settle in minutes and internal transfers are real time. Outbound, PIX is instant; ACH and SEPA take one or two days; an international wire, one to three.
No US residency required, though it excludes residents of New York and Alaska.

What it costs, no dressing

In my own use, 1% going in and 1% going out. A dollar that comes in and leaves again cost you 2%. Their documentation describes conversion as a fee that varies by volume, typically between 0.5% and 1.5%, so at higher volume it can come down. On top of that sit the standard network fees for whichever rail you use.

And here is the part a normal affiliate article would skip: against the region's 2.7% average, that is not a life-changing saving. It is a few tenths of a point. If you came here to cut your costs in half, this is not that, and I would rather tell you now than after you open the account.

What does change is something else.

The rewards, stated precisely

USDB balances earn 2.0% annually up to $100,000, 2.5% between $100,000 and $500,000, and 3.0% above that. They accrue daily and pay monthly, with no lock-ups.

Now the part almost nobody writes: that is not interest and it is not guaranteed. REDFi itself calls it a variable promotional reward. It is not a savings account, there is no deposit insurance behind it, and the rate can change. Treat it as what it is —a benefit on an operating balance— and not as the reason to park your company's money there.

What it is not

It is not a bank. It is a financial technology platform. That matters to your accountant, to your auditor and to how you file. If you are moving institutional volume, have that conversation with your legal adviser before opening the account, not after.

So why switch at all?

If the cost is similar, the right question is not how much you save. It is what you buy with that 2%. Three things, and none of them is price.

That the payment can happen at all

For much of the region this is the whole point. If your bank does not have the route, there is no fee to negotiate: the payment simply does not go. With more than half of Latin American banks depending on two correspondents or fewer, that situation is far more common than it looks. An account that pays out through the destination country's local rail does not depend on your bank having the right relationship with your supplier's bank.

That it arrives when you said it would

An international wire takes one to three days and nobody tells you which of the three. PIX in Brazil is instant, ACH and SEPA take one or two days, and internal movements are real time. When you have promised a supplier a date, that difference is worth considerably more than half a point of fee.

That you see the cost before you confirm

The region's 2.7% is an average of things you cannot see: the intermediary bank's fee, the FX spread, the correspondent's charge. A 2% that appears on screen before you hit accept and a 2.7% you discover when the statement arrives are not the same thing, however similar the numbers look. One you can budget for; the other you can only regret.

When it is not worth it

Not everyone should switch, and saying otherwise would be selling you something.

If your bank already works for you and you send one or two payments a month that land without drama, stay where you are. Replacing a process that works for a few tenths of a point makes no sense.
If your supplier only accepts a traditional bank transfer and wants nothing else, the problem is not on your side and this does not fix it.
If your accounting is not ready. If nobody on your team is going to document every conversion, you will trade a payments problem for a tax one, which is worse.
If the amounts are small. With one small payment a month, the 2% and the work of learning another system do not pay for themselves.

This makes sense when the volume is real, when speed matters, or when the traditional route simply is not available to you.

Retail or institutional: what changes depending on who you are

Both cases exist and the process is not the same.

If you are an individual —a freelancer getting paid from abroad, someone converting crypto to dollars, someone sending money home— you need to be of legal age, a valid government ID and to pass KYC. That is the fast route.

If you are a company, the process is KYB: entity documentation and identification of the authorised representatives. It takes longer and asks for more paperwork, which is a good sign. In exchange you get multi-user access with per-person permissions, which is what you need when whoever prepares the payment is not whoever approves it.

That permissions detail looks minor until you have to explain to a partner why a transfer went out that nobody remembers authorising. If you are going to move company money, separating who builds the payment from who signs it is not bureaucracy: it is what saves you.

How to start, step by step

Open the account at redfi.io. No opening cost and no monthly subscription.
Complete verification. KYC if you are an individual, KYB if it is a company. Have the documents ready before you start; that is what takes longest.
Run a small test. An amount that will not hurt, all the way to the final destination. Measure how much actually arrived and how long it took.
Only then move the real volume, now knowing the cost from your own experience rather than from what the page promised.

Step three is the one people skip, and it is the only one that protects you. Never break in a new payment route with the payment you cannot afford to lose.

The five mistakes that cost money

Watching the fee and ignoring the spread. I said it above and I am repeating it because it is the most expensive of them all.
Getting the network wrong. Sending USDT over a network the destination does not support is the fastest way to lose the whole amount. Check network and address, every time, with a minimal test first.
Confusing a reward with interest. A variable, promotional percentage is not a guaranteed return. If your financial plan depends on that rate, your plan has a problem.
Documenting nothing. Every conversion is an accounting event in almost any jurisdiction. Keep records from day one; reconstructing it later costs ten times more.
Putting all of the company's money in one place. It is not a bank. Keep there what you are moving, not what you are storing.

Before you do it

This is not financial, legal or tax advice. The rules on crypto, currency exchange and payments abroad change by country and change fast, and what is routine in Panama may require a filing in Colombia or Argentina. Before moving your company's volume, talk to your accountant and your lawyer.

And while we are here: if someone promises you that crypto means you pay no tax or declare nothing, that person is not helping you, they are walking you into a problem.

Where I come in

Everything above you can do on your own, which is why I wrote it out in full instead of leaving it half-finished so you would have to message me.

Where I usually come in is when this stops being a payment and becomes a process: several currencies, recurring suppliers, someone on the team who prepares and someone who approves, and accounting that has to reconcile without anyone copying and pasting into a spreadsheet. That is where the time goes and where automating pays for itself.

If you are at that point, write to me and we will look at it with your numbers in hand. And if you would rather start on your own, open the account here and run your small test this week.

If you go through that link and something gets stuck —the verification, the first transfer, the network you picked— write to me and we will sort it out. That comes with it.