Stablecoins: Tether invests in EFY Finance to accelerate payments in Latin America

New Latin American establishment for Tether. The group announced an investment in the seed financing round of EFY Finance, a fintech specializing in financial infrastructure. The objective: to develop professional uses of USDT and USAT, by linking digital dollars to bank accounts and local payment networks. The amount of the investment was not communicated.

Tether banks on EFY to connect stablecoins to businesses

EFY offers cross-border payments, accounts and digital asset custody services. Its offering also includes conversion between traditional currencies and stablecoins, over-the-counter transactions, wallets and cards.

According to the press release, the company has a digital asset service provider license in El Salvador. It notably has a presence in Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, El Salvador, Panama and Ecuador. This establishment constitutes a point of support for developing the institutional uses of the two stablecoins.

For a company, however, sending tokens is only part of the payment. It is also necessary to convert the funds, identify the beneficiary, document the transaction and allow the recipient to receive currency that can be used in their local account.

The speed of a transfer on blockchain therefore does not guarantee that of complete settlement. Delivery times and costs also depend on the intermediaries, controls and conversions required. It is on this articulation between crypto and banking services that the interest of an infrastructure like EFY plays out.

A Latin American market already marked by the use of digital dollars

The investment comes in a region where stablecoins already occupy an important place. Chainalysis's 2024 report estimated that Latin America received nearly $415 billion in cryptocurrencies between July 2023 and June 2024, or 9.1% of the global activity studied. Argentina came first with 91.1 billion dollars, ahead of Brazil with 90.3 billion. These figures are a historical benchmark, not a measure of the market in 2026.

Over this same period, stablecoins represented 61.8% of crypto transaction volume in Argentina, compared to 44.7% globally. Chainalysis associated this demand in particular with the search for protection against inflation and monetary depreciation. His analysis also highlighted the importance of cross-border payments between businesses in Brazil.