Banco Santander (NYSE: SAN) is offering cross border Ripple (XRP) payments in the United Kingdom.
The bank is testing Santander One Pay FX; an app that uses Ripple’s xCurrent to make cross border payment to Eurozone countries and the United States, a press release claims. Supposedly, One Pay Fx users will make international payments in one day.
The Santander One Pay FX app is potentially lucrative because they could use it for remittances. Remittances are payments individuals send to people in other countries and they are big business. For instance, the World Bank estimates that $613 billion worth of remittances were sent globally in 2017.
Ripple is experimenting with remittances between Japan and Thailand. Significantly, Instarem and RationalFX, are building RippleNet remittance corridors between the United Kingdom and Malaysia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Indonesia.
The Santander One Pay Fx app reportedly uses Rirpple’s xCurrent protocol to access the RippleNet. The RippleNet is a sidechain, a less-encrypted digital shortcut between blockchains.
Santander and Ripple (XRP) building blockchain-based international payments service
The RippleNet offers a far higher transaction volume and speed than other cryptocurrency solutions. For instance, HowMuch claims Ripple can process 1,500 transactions a second. Conversely, Bitcoin (BTC) only processes seven transactions a second.
One Pay Fx reportedly makes Santander the first bank to roll out a roll out a “blockchain-based international payments service to retail customers in multiple countries simultaneously.”
Notably, Santander is rolling out the app in several countries including Brazil. Unfortunately, details of those rollouts are not available.
That might increase Santander’s business by giving average people the same capacity to send money as big corporations. For instance, Santander customers will send Remittances at a lower rate in one day. In contrast, traditional international wire payments take three to five days to arrive.
Currently, Santander One Pay Fx is available to Santander account holders in the United Kingdom. Ripple’s press release did not say when One Pay Fx will be available to Santander customers in the United States.
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