MXN to GBP : I can't do it.
BTC to BTC :I can do it.
Non of the fancy services allow me to send money from Mexico to the UK.
It is crypto or paying for SWIFT, Western Union or similar. With very high costs.
BTC to BTC :I can do it.
Non of the fancy services allow me to send money from Mexico to the UK.
It is crypto or paying for SWIFT, Western Union or similar. With very high costs.
BTC is a nightmare. You have to find an exchange in Mexico (which won't run away with your money a la Quadriga) and they'll take 1-2% and sit on the transfer for a few days. Then you have to transfer from there to another exchange in the UK paying a BTC exchange fee, then cash out in the UK, they'll take another 1-2%. In the week the exchanges have been camping on your money if you ever see it again, the forex risk is astronomical as it regularly swings +/- 20% weekly. Then due to the inevitable change in value of BTC during the week your transfer takes, you now have reporting obligations to your local tax authorities in BOTH Mexico AND the UK. This may require hiring an accountant to resolve which adds yet another mess of fees.
Pay a service 2-2.5% and be done with it or:
1-2% fee to Exchange 1 + a few days FOREX risk + the current BTC fee of $1.26 + 1-2% fee to exchange 2 + the risk anyone in the chain is going to ruin you because they're totally unregulated fly-by-night operations then learn the nuances of both Mexican and UK tax law in regards to capital gains.
This is a common crypto shill talking point. It's been thoroughly disproven that crypto is better for international remittences than existing solutions. It's a solved problem.
I tried both of them and I can't (I am living in Mexico). I don't understand why you think BTC is a nightmare. For me, living in Mexico, and dealing with MXN and GBP (my brother is in Northen Ireland) it has worked wonders.
You are assuming that Bitcoin exchanges in Mexico are unregulated, when they are VERY regulated. You are making negative assumptions for every Crypto step while making positive assumptions for every step in your scenario. I does not make sense.
And why wouldn't I make negative assumptions of crypto [1], [2], [3], [4]. There's a scammer at every single level and being intentionally resistant to censorship, control and authority makes that impossible to stop. It's designed to support scams.
Remember the man who lost $420,000USD while attempting to use Quadriga to exchange USD for CAD when moving to Canada using exactly the approach you're describing? [0] It's like asking me why I've got negative associations with the "Titanic II." Something about what happened to the first Titanic.
Last, based on my research, it appears Mexican crypto exchanges aren't regulated yet, and that regulators are about to shut them all down [5]. "Because cryptocurrencies are such complicated technologies, the argument goes, average citizens can’t understand how they work and should not, therefore, be allowed to buy them." I'm 100% with your regulators.
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-09/software-...
[1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-gerald-cott...
[2] https://www.chepicap.com/en/news/4366/roubini-on-tether-it-s...
[3] https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/22/17151430/bankruptcy-mt-go...
[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/cbovaird/2019/03/22/95-of-repor...
[5] https://coincenter.org/entry/new-regulation-would-effectivel...
It is actually very simple: A lot of these services do not provide services in Mexico. Really, the passive aggressive comment is not necessary.
I assume that you live in the UK or the USA. Usually what happens is that people that live there live in a "technological bubble" where all of those first-world services are available. But most of them do not have service in most of other countries.
I work in a B2B payment company and have had the opportunity to deal with these kind of issues. Believe me that cross-country payments is nowhere a solved problem. The blockchain technology definitely has something on it if used correctly.
Either way, another legitimate option for you to consider is an Interactive Brokers account which has great forex options (interbank rates) and Mexico is a supported country. They charge a commission of 0.2 basis points (0.2/100 of a percent) with a minimum of $2USD per order. There really are a lot of legitimate options that don't require cryptocurrency. People have been trading currencies for hundreds of years.
There's a great writeup on the way you can do it here: https://gfmasset.com/2018/09/better-than-transferwise-saving...
For interest you can even do USD-CAD exchanges with zero spread via Norbert's Gambit (https://medium.com/young-wild-and-cheap/the-norberts-gambit-...)
Both https://www.currenciesdirect.com/ and https://www.smartcurrencyexchange.com can do it.
SmartCurrencyExhcange: https://ibb.co/4RGXvbc also nope
They don't have MXN/Mexico, along with a lot of other currencies from Latin America, Africa and Asia