The use of Ripple technology is being expanded by the Spanish banking behemoth, Santander.
Currently undergoing the construction of a “payment corridor” that would allow customers in Katin America to send money to the US for free and instantly through One Pay FX.
Whereas it’s only an option available to customers residing in the UK and Spain (who can send money over to the States via One Pay FX), the bank wouldn't reveal how many Latin American nations it plans to connect to the corridor, Santander serves Chile, Mexico, Uruguay and Brazil.
In a similar light to Santander’s DLT efforts to date, the new payment capability won’t involve the cryptocurrency that Ripple periodically sells to fund its projects, XRP which will in turn power it separate Rapid product.
In 2018, Santander introduced One Pay FX in four nations that happen to account for more than half of the bank’s profits including, Spain, the UK, Poland and the aforementioned Brazil.
Cedric Menager, CEO of One Pay FX, said that this is gaining traction:
“Customers who were not doing international transfers are now using the service, customers who were using international transfer are now doing it more, and customers who had gone to use fintech competition have come back because of the One Pay offering.”
The Spanish bank hasn’t given any details in regards to its transaction volumes for One Pay FX, Santander said those volumes tripled from January this year to June and volumes for Spain increased by more than a hundred percent.
Menager said that expanding One Pay FX would mean a bigger change for some countries in South America, who will go from making international transfers in branches to instant online payments, than for European countries.
“The international payment experience in the Latin American markets is even less evolved than in the European markets,” he said. “There are even parts of the Latin American market where it’s almost impossible to do an online international payment.”
He later went onto say:
Investment Disclaimer“International payments is a way for us to acquire customers having a painful experience with traditional banking.”