According to recent media reports, the Spanish giant Santander Group is expanding its use of Ripple technology.
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The bank’s executives told CoinDesk that the bank is building a “payment corridor” that allows Latin American customers to send money to the US for free immediately through One Pay FX, a mobile app that uses Ripple's xCurrent software.
Currently, only UK and Spanish customers can send money to the US via One Pay FX. Although the bank does not want to disclose how many Latin American countries are planned to connect, Santander currently provides banking services to Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Mexico.
As with Santander's efforts to date with distributed ledger technology (DLT), this new payment capability will not involve Ripple (XRP). XRP is a cryptocurrency that Ripple regularly sells to operating agencies to power its individual xRapid products. Last year, Santander launched One Pay FX in four countries, including Spain, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Poland, which accounted for more than half of the bank's profits.
The bank said that this product is being sought after.
One Pay FX CEO Cedric Menager told CoinDesk:
“Customers who have not used international transfers in the past are using this service. Customers who used international transfers in the past now use this service more often, and those who originally used financial technology competition are back because of the launch of One Pay. ”
Menag said that unlike the SWIFT communication system traditionally used by banks to make international transfers, One Pay FX on xCurrent is instant, at no charge, and users can check the currency exchange rate before sending money.
Volume growth
Although Santander did not want to disclose the volume of One Pay FX, the bank said that from January 2019 to June this year, the transaction volume has tripled. (In April of this year, the bank's total cross-border business for Spain increased by 120% year-on-year, including the volume of One Pay FX and other payment channels.)
Menag said that for some Latin American customers, expanding a foreign exchange payment business will mean even greater changes. Compared with European customers, Latin American customers will switch from international transfers at branches to instant online payments.
He said:
“The international payment experience in the Latin American market is not as good as in the European market. Even in some markets in Latin America, online international payments are almost impossible.”
The corridor will be launched country by country and the bank will not disclose when the first country will be launched.
The bank also plans to provide a payment service to customers of Santander, allowing them to remit funds overseas, but the date of launch has not yet been determined. Due to differences in financial regulation, the bank's product launch in the United States will be a bigger business boost.
Santander is also developing Pago FX, an international payment product for non-Santander customers, trying to win these customers from other banks. It also did not say what technology this will use.
Menag said:
“For us, international payments are a way for us to get customers who have a painful experience with traditional banking.”
