For an iGaming business, payment fee is only part of the equation. The other part is time: how long a client’s deposit takes to become money the operator can use. In Asia and Latin America, where operators receive payments through a patchwork of local methods, settlement delays mean hidden expenses tied to volatile currencies and fragmented payment networks.
Locked liquidity
Сard settlement generally takes one to three business days, and high-risk accounts often start at T+3 to T+5, according to Stripe and SeamlessChex. Considering that a payment settlement occurs on the third business day, a merchant making USD 2 million turnover monthly has USD 200,000 stuck in payment process at each point of time:
These USD 200,000 cannot be called expenses, but it is out of reach. The amount can be even higher: a deposit made on Friday may not arrive until Tuesday. Merchants cannot use them to fund client withdrawals or make affiliate payouts.
The effect becomes more sensible where a local currency may depreciate very rapidly relative to the US dollar. A good example is Argentina. In 2024 the official peso was devalued by 2% a month under a crawling peg, which is about 0.2% over a three-day settlement, or roughly USD 4,000 a month on USD 2 million of turnover collected in pesos. The real danger is a sudden move: the one-off devaluation of December 2023 was 54%, and a merchant holding pesos in transit on that day lost more than half of their dollar value.
The Asian market faces a different settlement problem. Most of the region’s payment providers grew up serving mainly one national market. Danny Chung, General Manager of the Alipay+ Global Growth Centre at Ant International, was quoted saying that payment systems in Asia have largely developed domestically, and that “this fragmentation creates friction” as trade, travel and digital commerce expand across borders. A merchant receiving payments from clients in several markets deals with each system separately and waits for settlement on each route. Either way, the outcome is the same: a large share of incoming liquidity is always in transit.
Where Crypto Payments Fit
Crypto rails address this timing gap issue, if local regulation doesn’t prohibit crypto payments for licensed iGaming businesses. Brazil, until recently Latin America’s largest regulated betting market, built its licensed sector around domestic rails: SPA Ordinance 615/2024 required operators to use authorised electronic transfers such as the instant Pix system, TED and debit or prepaid cards, and prohibited crypto deposits. Since September 2026, the question has been moot there, as online casinos and betting sites in Brazil were banned and went offline.
Where crypto is permitted, the mechanics are simple. Once a transaction is confirmed and written down in the blockchain, funds can be credited to the operator’s crypto balance.
When dealing with major processors, crypto settlement happens almost instantly, as they don’t wait for all blockchain confirmations. It is no surprise, then, that interest in crypto processing has grown in Asia and Latin America, where merchants need faster access to funds across fragmented local systems and unstable national currencies. Volatile cryptocurrencies also carry exchange-rate risk, but that exposure is limited because incoming payments can be converted automatically to stablecoins or fiat upon receipt.
High-risk merchants serving clients in Latin America and Asia are already adding crypto processing to their lists of payment methods. Eightcap, a Melbourne-based forex and CFD broker, reported in December 2025 that stablecoins account for 10%-20% of its deposits globally. In Latin America and Southeast Asia, the figure reaches 40%. The broader market shows a similar trend. According to Chainalysis, the value of on-chain crypto received in Asia-Pacific rose 69% year over year, reaching USD 2.36 trillion in the 12 months to June 2025. Latin America recorded 63% growth over the same period.
According to B2BINPAY, an international crypto gateway which supports more than 50 digital assets and has processed USD 7.9 billion in incoming transactions, incoming crypto payments are settled almost instantly to merchant accounts and crypto wallets, with timing depending on the network. Merchants can also opt for fiat settlement, a service offered by most crypto payment processors. Even then, settlement typically takes T+1.
Faster settlement comes with lower processing fees often depending on monthly transaction volume. For example, B2BINPAY’s fees for crypto payments start at 0.4%-0.5% and drop to 0.25% in coins and 0.35% in stablecoins once monthly transaction volume exceeds USD 5 million. At USD 2 million in monthly volume paid in USDT, a 0.45% fee would come to USD 9,000. The applicable rate depends on the relevant volume tier. B2BINPAY lists no provider fee for outgoing crypto transfers and immediate crypto settlement, although blockchain network charges and separate fiat withdrawal fees may still apply.
Beyond faster settlement and lower fees, crypto processing removes another headache familiar to high-risk merchants worldwide: rolling reserves. Traditional payment providers commonly require high-risk businesses, including forex brokers and iGaming operators, to hold back 5% to 10% of sales for 90 to 180 days. For a merchant processing USD 2 million a month, a 10% reserve held for 180 days means as much as USD 1.2 million locked at any given time:
In total, a merchant processing 2 million USD a month has USD 1.4 million out of reach at any time: USD 1.2 million in reserves and USD 200,000 in transit. While it is not available, it does not work for the business, and that has a price too. At a 5% cost of capital, that money costs USD 70,000 a year. It equals 0.29% of annual turnover, and it comes on top of the provider’s processing fee.
Many crypto processors, including B2BINPAY, CryptoProcessing and Paybis, state in their published terms that they apply no rolling reserve, so merchants keep their money instead of leaving part of it with the processor. Combined with near-immediate crypto settlement, this can reduce the share of working capital tied up between a client payment and its actual use.
Dependence on one provider is also a risk for the merchant, warns the SOFTSWISS Trends 2026 report. With traditional processing, the PSP decides when the reserve is returned. If the provider changes its rules, leaves the sector or has a technical failure during the 90 to 180 days, the merchant may wait months to get its money back. USD 1.2 million in reserves mean USD 1.2 million exposed to this risk.
Crypto does not remove this risk entirely, but the level of control is different. A crypto balance is available for withdrawal whenever the merchant chooses. Full control comes with non-custodial DeFi solutions in crypto processing, such as the B2BINPAY DeFi product, which keeps the funds and keys entirely in the merchant’s hands.
Crypto payments still follow established compliance procedures, with KYC verifications, AML and KYT checks built into the payment flow. Where local rules allow it, this makes crypto processing a viable option for regulated iGaming operators. It just adds another payment method to the existing stack, helping reduce locked-up liquidity and lower payment processing costs.
If crypto payments are not yet part of an operator’s payment stack and local rules allow them, it deserves a serious look. Three days against a few minutes for crypto, or against one day for fiat settlement on T+1, is a hard gap to ignore.
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