A Bank of Italy mystery shopping exercise has found that sending money across borders using stablecoins can cost as much as 9%, a result that challenges the widely promoted notion that stablecoin-based remittances offer a significantly cheaper alternative to traditional transfer services.

The finding comes from research conducted by Banca d'Italia, in which researchers tested the actual costs of moving money abroad via stablecoins. Stablecoins are cryptocurrency tokens designed to maintain a stable value, typically pegged to the U.S. dollar. Remittances refer to the small cross-border payments that migrant workers and their families send home — a global flow worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

The 9% Figure in Context

The headline number from the test is that these transfers can cost up to 9%. That "up to" phrasing is important: it describes the high end of what researchers observed during the exercise, not a flat fee applied to every stablecoin transfer. For comparison, the World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide database has historically tracked the global average cost of sending remittances at roughly 6%, while the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals call for reducing remittance transaction costs to below 3% by 2030. A ceiling at 9% would place the most expensive stablecoin corridors above the average cost of many conventional channels. The result was published by a central bank, which lends it significant weight in payment-policy debates.

Why a 9% Ceiling Challenges the Low-Cost Narrative

Stablecoin payments are frequently marketed on the promise of lower friction and cheaper cross-border movement compared to banks or money-transfer operators. A cost reaching 9% sits uncomfortably against that framing, as it is high for a product category marketed as faster and less expensive.

For people who rely on remittances — migrant workers and their families sending modest sums — fees at that level erode a meaningful share of each transfer. The tension the test surfaces centers on cost rather than speed.

Where Costs Accumulate

A stablecoin remittance is not a single, frictionless transaction. Expenses can build up across multiple steps, including converting local currency into a stablecoin, moving the tokens on-chain, and cashing out on the receiving end. Each conversion point — fiat-to-crypto on the sending side and crypto-to-fiat on the receiving side — introduces exchange-rate spreads and platform fees that can compound. The Bank of Italy exercise measured the combined, real-world cost of that entire chain rather than isolating a single network fee.

Implications for Stablecoin Adoption and Regulatory Oversight

Because the research originates from a central bank rather than an industry vendor, the exercise carries added credibility in policy and oversight discussions. The study is particularly relevant in the European context, where the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) — which took effect for stablecoin issuers in mid-2024 — establishes reserve, transparency, and operational requirements for token providers. Institutional testing of consumer costs provides regulators and payment providers with a common reference point when evaluating whether the regime is delivering tangible benefits to end users.

For firms building stablecoin remittance products, the result serves as a prompt to demonstrate where their pricing actually lands — especially as banks and card networks push deeper into the space, seen in efforts such as a stablecoin backed by BlackRock and Visa. The finding also aligns with a broader wave of official scrutiny of crypto payments, including moves such as the Bank of Russia's draft rules for organized crypto trading.

The exercise is best understood as a signal for further scrutiny of specific remittance routes rather than a definitive verdict on every stablecoin transfer model. The central question going forward is whether providers can demonstrate consistently lower costs than the top-end figure recorded by the central bank — and whether emerging regulatory frameworks compel the transparency needed for consumers to verify those claims.

The full findings are available in Banca d'Italia's published report (MISP No. 86).