The infusion of Ripple by global banks has gained traction lately, as Spanish biggest bank by total asset and market capitalization, Santander, designed a Ripple enabled payment app called Pay FX that offers a borderless blockchain-based payment channel.
Santander recently just added 19 geopolitical regions to its One Pay FX international payments app offering in collaboration with blockchain and crypto payment powerhouse Ripple.
Before now, the blockchain payment app was available only in Poland, Spain, Brazil, and the United Kingdom; One Pay FX now enables users from the world’s biggest economy, United States, and emerging markets that include Chile to sit among others on the list of added countries, totaling the number of countries on its offering to 22.
Quick fact: Ripple (XRP) plays dual roles as a payment platform and a currency. It has an open-source platform that is created to allow quick and cheap transactions.
Unlike its crypto rival, Bitcoin, which was never intended to be a simple payment system, Ripple has gained the attention of major global banks, like Standard Chartered, and Barclays for international transactions worldwide.
“Customers told us that the international payments process could be better so we partnered with Ripple to explore how BTC could make transactions faster, cheaper and more transparent,” Ed Metzger, CTO of One Pay FX said in the statement.
Metzger described feedback from customers, noting difficulties with transaction exchange rate clarity and timing confusion.
“Ripple helps us directly address the issues raised by our customers […] Whether they are putting down a deposit on a holiday rental or paying a foreign supplier, they see exactly how much will arrive when they’re making the payment and have certainty about when it will get there.”
Santander partnered with Ripple to address customer feedback around the international payments process. The bank’s retail and commercial customers were dissatisfied with the lack of transparency around fees when sending money abroad, as well as the high costs and slow speed of each transaction.
The simple mobile app allows customers to see exactly how much will arrive when they’re making international payments, while the low-cost transactions happen instantly or on the same day, instead of the traditional 3-5 timeframe.