Europe · GDP rank #9

Italy

IT · EUR @ 1.1595/USD

Italy is the euro area's largest cash-dependent economy and its fourth-largest card market. The national payments story is shaped by Nexi, Europe's largest PayTech, by the state-mandated PagoPA platform for public-sector collections, and by the Instant Payments Regulation that made instant credit transfers a universal right across Italian banks in January 2025 and on the send side from October 2025.

Tab 05

Cross-border

Inbound and outbound remittance corridors, tourism flows, FX markup on retail cross-border, and the country's posture on stablecoin adoption. Corridor figures come from the World Bank RPW feed or the publishing central bank; both are cited when they disagree.

Reported inbound corridors

$1.1B

2 corridors

Reported outbound corridors

$3.5B

4 corridors

Avg. consumer FX markup

3.2%

Trend · compressing

Top inbound corridors

  • Germany$680.0M

    via SEPA / SCT Inst · 0.0% cost

  • United States$410.0M

    3.4% cost

Top outbound corridors

  • Romania$1.8B

    1.6% cost

  • Morocco$720.0M

    4.8% cost

  • Albania$640.0M

    5.2% cost

  • Philippines$380.0M

    4.4% cost

FX cost

What consumers pay above the interbank

Retail FX markup is the spread between the mid-market rate and the rate the consumer receives — the single largest friction point in small-ticket cross-border.

Wise, Revolut and Western Union compete on outbound EU-to-North-Africa corridors; SEPA intra-euro-area is at par.

Consumer FX markup vs 3% ceiling

0.0%benchmark 3.0%3.2%

Benchmark 3% is the G20 target for average remittance corridor cost; above the mark is expensive by policy standard.

Trend · compressing

World Bank

Stablecoin posture · regulated

MiCA fully applicable since December 2024; CONSOB and Banca d'Italia are joint supervisory authorities. Italian exchanges (The Rock Trading, Young Platform, Conio) hold CASP licences.