Banco Masventas Bank (BMV) of Argentina has suddenly revealed that Banco Masventas and Bitex have entered into a partnership. Starting from Monday, it will cooperate with the Bitex exchange to enable customers to use Bitcoin for cross-border payments as an alternative to Swift.

Founded in 2014, Bitex is an exchange startup focused on Latin America.

Bitex CEO Manuel Beaudroit said that this was the first time that Argentine domestic banks had used Bitcoin for cross-border payments.

According to BMV, customers can now use Bitex to send money to over 50 different countries in less than 24 hours, with a fee of 3% +VAT.

In the statement, José Humberto Dakak, a major shareholder of Masventas, believes that this move is aimed at strengthening its digital and smart phone-based services and reducing the cost of services for banks.

“One of the initiatives is to use Bitex as a strategic partner to provide our overseas customers with payment and collection services at the Bitex Exchange .”

Beaudroit said that although the service started today, there is no real deal so far, but the bank will soon use Bitcoin for trading.

“Customers will ask banks to make international payments. Banks use Bitex as a provider. For customers, this is transparent. They do not touch Bitcoin. We are their providers.”

Author: Marko Vidrih

@cryptomarks

image via inversionargentina.com