The government of El Salvador has announced that its Chivo wallet is now available on the App Store for European users. This means that a share of remittances from the Salvadoran diaspora can now be received in Bitcoin (BTC). A threat to cross-border payment services?
Chivo now available in Europe
Chivo wallet has made a quiet arrival in Europe, via the Apple App Store. The wallet, which was proposed by the government when El Salvador adopted Bitcoin, was previously limited to users in the country.
For the time being, Chivo is not available on Google Play, and therefore Android devices. But it is likely that it will be soon. Tomorrow, the Salvadoran government will present the portfolio to expatriates:
🔴 NEWS
El Salvador government’s bitcoin wallet is available on the European AppStore
► Diaspora will be able to send money home free of charge by overriding @WesternUnion & co
► Government to hold a visio on Teams to introduce it to expats pic.twitter.com/XKpRziHhPv
– Gregory Raymond (@gregory_raymond) February 22, 2022
The Directorate of Economic Relations, the Directorate of Diaspora and Development and the Ministry of Economy will hold a presentation on Microsoft Teams to encourage Salvadorans living abroad to use the portfolio
International remittances: a key issue for El Salvador
The reason the news is so significant is that a large part of El Salvador’s GDP comes from the diaspora, i.e. Salvadorans living outside the country. According to World Bank data, 24% of El Salvador’s GDP was based on remittances. In total, 70% of the country’s inhabitants are said to receive payments from abroad.
The availability of Chivo in Europe is therefore a particularly crucial issue for the country, which has bet everything on Bitcoin. President Nayib Bukele had already stated that if the use of BTC spreads, payment services such as MoneyGram or Western Union could lose a lot.
He estimated last September that $400 million could now be sent using BTC. This is a significant amount when you consider that the diaspora sent nearly $6 billion in remittances to El Salvador last year.
Will the government succeed? Already, a majority of the country’s inhabitants have adopted the Chivo wallet. If it can also win over a significant portion of the diaspora, it will be seen as a coup for Bitcoin’s advocates… whatever the IMF says.
