Mercado Pago Extends Its Cryptocurrency Services in Brazil

Mercado Pago, a digital payments company associated with Mercadolibre, recently announced the expansion of its crypto services to Brazilian users. The company revealed that it will now allow customers to deposit their own cryptocurrency through third-party services and wallets into a cryptocurrency digital wallet without any associated costs.

Mercado Pago to allow deposits from third-party services

Mercado Pago, the payment processing service of Mercadolibre, one of LATAM’s largest e-retailers, announced that it is expanding its crypto-related services for Brazilian customers, which it launched in November. The company reportedly will open its platform for customers to receive crypto deposits coming from third-party services, including other exchanges and other digital wallets.

In a statement sent to Portal do Bitcoin, Mercado Pago said:

Starting today, you will be able to receive Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Pax Dollar from other digital wallets through the Mercado Pago app. Last week, money transfers through the app itself also began to be available.

This enhances the functionality of Mercado Pago’s transaction services, which previously only allowed users to buy and sell crypto from within the app, acting as a closed ecosystem. Other companies, such as Nubank, which uses Paxos as a crypto service partner, operate in a similar fashion.

The ability to add transfers between crypto accounts within the Mercado Pago platform was also requested by customers, allowing them to move crypto without having to exchange it for Brazilian fiat currency.

Withdrawals are not yet available

The company launched its cryptocurrency service in November, but has not yet opened up a system to allow withdrawals from the platform to other exchanges or wallets. On the issue of withdrawals, Osvaldo Gimenez, Mercado Pago’s president of fintech,declared in December that

It is only a matter of time before we allow withdrawals and then transfers between wallets. The priority, however, was to give access to investing in cryptocurrency.

However, six months after that statement was made, there is still no way to transfer any of the available cryptocurrencies away from the Mercado Pago platform. The company has not provided a timeframe for this service to become available.

Mercadolibre recently partnered with Mastercard to use its services to secure transactions and lower the risks associated with trading on exchange platforms. The company announced that it will leverage Mastercard’s capabilities to avoid money laundering and other related crimes on its platform.

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