Italy’s Central Bank Finds Stablecoins Still Can’t Beat Traditional Payments

# Italy’s Central Bank Finds Stablecoins Still Can’t Beat Traditional Payments

> Evidence tier: B1
> Evidence type: Independent payments trade media report
> Source: [PYMNTS](https://www.pymnts.com/cryptocurrency/2026/italys-central-bank-finds-stablecoins-still-cant-beat-traditional-payments)
> Published: 2026-08-04
> Captured: 2026-08-05T01:40:43.199Z

## Source summary

PYMNTS summarizes a Banca d'Italia mystery-shopping study of 200-USDC transfers across 10 corridors linking Italy with Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, the UAE and Japan. End-to-end cost ranged from 0.30% to 8.96% and completion time from under 20 minutes to two business days; the blockchain leg contributed about 0.4% of total cost, while on/off ramps, spreads and bank transfers drove most variation. It separately cites Project Agorá's average initiation-to-settlement time of about 80 seconds.

## Why it matters

The study shows that fast token settlement does not guarantee a cheap or fast customer payment: domestic rails, exchange liquidity, spreads and withdrawals can dominate the result. Operators comparing stablecoin corridors should therefore measure the complete cash-in-to-cash-out journey; the figures are a limited experiment, not a universal ranking of stablecoins against every conventional rail.

## Key numbers

- **Mystery-shopping transfer size:** 200 USDC
- **Corridors tested:** 10
- **End-to-end cost range:** 0.30% to 8.96%
- **Completion-time range:** under 20 minutes to two business days
- **Project Agorá average settlement time cited:** about 80 seconds

## Topics and entities

- Industry lane: Payment infrastructure
- Entities: Banca d'Italia / Project Agorá
- Web3 payments
- Cross-border payments
- Payment infrastructure

## Evidence and credibility note

PYMNTS analysis citing a Banca d'Italia experiment and Project Agorá results. The corridor sample and transfer size are limited; results should not be generalized beyond the tested flows.

Date evidence: Automatically verified from article:published_time: 2026-08-04T15:30:07+00:00

## First-party corroboration

No directly corresponding A1 company announcement is currently linked.

## Original-source traceback

[Open the original PYMNTS report](https://www.pymnts.com/cryptocurrency/2026/italys-central-bank-finds-stablecoins-still-cant-beat-traditional-payments)

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This is a structured Payments Hot Markdown source summary derived from external reporting. Use the original link above to read the publisher's article; copyright remains with the original publisher.