Oobit, a Tether-backed payments platform, has debuted its crypto payments services in Colombia as the national peso currency continues to see dips against the US dollar. In an official announcement shared on Thursday, the Sinagpore-headquartered company said its mobile-based tap-and-pay services will allow Colombians to spend digital dollars for dailly commerce activities.
Oobit’s payment services can be explained as the crypto-native version of Apple Pay or Google Pay. Colombian users of Oobit will now be able to tap their phones on standard card terminals and choose to pay using stablecoins and crypto assets including BTC and ETH. Oobit will instantly convert the crypto payments into the local currency for merchants and deposit fiat cash into their accounts, just like traditional cards.
“Persistent peso volatility and heavy remittance dependence have conditioned households to think in digital dollars,” the company said. “Oobit’s expansion into the country is part of preparation for the next phase of crypto adoption – spending the digital dollars at everyday merchant stores.”
Colombia has already been showing a massive interest in adopting stablecoins to reduce the cost of traditional money transfer fees and manage exchange rates. The country, as per Chainalysis, has secured the second-highest rate in the world for people swapping their local currency for “digital dollars” (stablecoins) on major crypto exchanges.
Source: Chainalysis
By getting access to crypto and stablecoin-based settlement options via Oobit, Colombians will get an option to dodge the inflation and the volatility in peso prices to spend in stablecoins without having to shell out currency conversion fees.
Colombians will be able to connect their self-custodial wallets to their Oobit accounts to facilitate these payments.
In 2024, Tether led a $25 million Series A funding round in Oobit, looking to grow the USDT’s reputation as a digital dollar option, especially in smaller economies. In 2023, Visa joined hands with Oobit to allow it to integrate its Tap and Pay solution for crypto-based purchases along with real-time crypto-to-fiat conversions.
Colombia is Oobit’s ninth market after it expanded in Brazil, Argentina and Chile among other nations.
