Kustodia launches smart contract escrow for LATAM’s $600m fraud crisis

Mexico’s first peso-denominated blockchain escrow goes live on SPEI for high-value P2P transactions.

Mexico City, April 29, 2026 — Kustodia, a programmable escrow platform for Latin America’s high-value economy, today announced the public launch of its smart contract escrow service in Mexico. Buyers and sellers can now protect any transaction — from used vehicles to real estate deposits to B2B contracts — using SPEI, Mexico’s instant payment rail. Funds are held in audited smart contracts until both parties confirm delivery, with no human intermediary involved.

Payment fraud stripped $44.3 billion from the global economy in 2024, according to Juniper Research. Latin America has the world’s highest fraud rate, with 20 percent of merchant revenue lost annually. In Mexico, every dollar of fraud costs $4.08 in total economic damage — representing approximately $600 million USD in annual losses, according to data from Cloudflare and Mexico Business News.

‘I lost money to fraud in a peer-to-peer transaction in 2021,’ said Rodrigo Jimenez, Founder and CEO of Kustodia. ‘I spent three years building the infrastructure that should have existed. Mexico’s $60 billion used vehicle market runs almost entirely on stranger-to-stranger transactions with no protection for either side. We changed that.’

How it works — no app, no crypto knowledge needed

Kustodia works entirely through SPEI and WhatsApp. The buyer deposits pesos to a unique account number generated by Kustodia. Those pesos are immediately locked in a smart contract on the Arbitrum blockchain — neither party can access them. The seller delivers. Both parties confirm. The funds are released to the seller’s bank account in pesos. The blockchain operates invisibly; users interact only through WhatsApp.

The platform uses MXNB, a 1:1 Mexican peso-backed stablecoin issued by Juno and audited by a Big Four accounting firm, as its escrow settlement layer. This means users never experience cryptocurrency price volatility — they send pesos and receive pesos. Every completed transaction is publicly verifiable on Arbitrum’s blockchain explorer at no cost to anyone.

Users never pay blockchain fees. Kustodia absorbs and bundles these costs automatically, so the only fee a user sees is the escrow commission — 3 percent for standard transactions, lower for volume partners. Compared to traditional escrow agents that charge 3 to 6 percent and take 5 to 7 days to settle, Kustodia settles near-instantly.

From used cars to real estate to AI agents

Kustodia’s initial focus is the Mexican used vehicle market, where the average transaction is $15,000 USD and fraud risk is highest. The platform includes integrated vehicle history verification powered by Truora, KYC identity checks, and webhook-based notifications for marketplace integrations.

The platform also supports AI agents through its dedicated agent infrastructure at kustodia.app/ai-agents, enabling autonomous systems to create and manage escrow contracts programmatically. Web3 native escrow is available at kustodia.app/web3, supporting USDC and MXNB on Arbitrum and Injective.

Real estate rental deposits, crowdfunding, and marketplace integrations are live as additional verticals. USD Wire is supported for cross-border US-to-Mexico transactions. Brazilian real (BRL) via Pix is in development for the company’s planned 2027 Brazil expansion.

Source: Kustodia

Built for developers and platforms

Kustodia offers a full API and webhook system for marketplace integration. Developers can explore documentation and test the platform at kustodia.app/demo/marketplace. The platform currently works alongside SPEI, USD Wire, and USDC — and compares favourably to MercadoPago and Stripe Mexico, neither of which offers true escrow, blockchain verification, or integrated vehicle checks.

Source: Kustodia

About Kustodia

Kustodia is programmable escrow infrastructure for Latin America and emerging markets. The platform protects high-value transactions across vehicles, real estate, services, and crowdfunding using smart contracts on Arbitrum and Injective, with SPEI and USD Wire as fiat rails. Available at kustodia.app.

Media contact:

This publication is provided by the client. The text below is a paid press release that is not part of Cointelegraph.com independent editorial content. The text has undergone editorial review to ensure quality and relevance, it may not reflect the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.com. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research before taking any actions related to the company. Disclosure.