Glossary · moving money
What is a remittance?
A remittance is money sent by an individual to someone in another country, usually a worker supporting family at home. It is the same movement as a cross-border business payment, and it is priced far worse.
Why the word matters in a payments discussion
Remittance corridors are where cross-border payment costs are least defensible. Small amounts, frequent, to countries with thin banking infrastructure, and historically charged at percentages a business would never accept.
That is why remittances are the most cited use case for crypto payments, and why the citation is usually a step ahead of reality. Moving value on a blockchain is cheap. Turning it into local cash the recipient can spend is the hard part, and that is a local off-ramp problem rather than a blockchain one.
For a business the term is mostly relevant in two ways. If you pay individuals abroad, your payouts are functionally remittances and the same corridor economics apply. And if your customers are remittance senders, the off-ramp on the other end is your product problem, not a detail.
What is genuinely solved and what is not
Worth separating, because the marketing in this area runs well ahead of the plumbing.
The transfer itself
Minutes, a network fee, no correspondent chain. This part is real and settled.
Frequently asked questions
Is a business payout a remittance?
Functionally yes when you are paying an individual abroad. The corridor economics are the same even though the terminology differs.
Does crypto make remittances cheap?
It makes the transfer cheap. Whether the whole journey is cheap depends on the off-ramp at the other end, which is local and variable.
Can CoinGate pay someone who has never held crypto?
You can send them a payout link, which walks them through choosing an asset and network. What they do with it afterwards is up to local options.