What is a vostro account?
Definition
A vostro account is a foreign institution's account held on a local bank's books, denominated in the local currency. It is the same account as a nostro account, described from the other side of the relationship.
Vostro means yours in Latin: your money on our books. When a Mexican bank holds pesos for a US payment company, the US company calls that balance its nostro account and the Mexican bank calls it a vostro account. Banks maintain vostro relationships selectively, because each one carries compliance and monitoring obligations.
The distinction matters when you set up corridors. Opening a payout market means finding a local institution willing to run the vostro side, funding it, and keeping it funded. In markets where correspondent banking has retreated, that willingness is the bottleneck. Settling through stablecoins narrows what you need from local partners to the payout leg itself, which is how Codex FX reaches emerging market corridors without a chain of intermediaries.
Related terms