- New strategic partnership will facilitate instant, secure global money transfer transactions via RippleNet
- Move comes after InstaReM’s 2018 European and US expansion
- Ripple says new partnership “works for customers, not against them”
InstaReM, the leading digital platform for people needing to transfer money internationally into and out of the Southeast Asia region, has deepened its existing ties with blockchain payment platform Ripple with a new strategic partnership that will facilitate fast and inexpensive global payments in the region with low overseas transfer rates.
The move follows several significant growth steps for the company this year. In May, InstaReM and B2B money exchange brokers BeeTech announced their first foray into using Ripple’s cross-border payments tool RippleNet, a matter of days after the UK international money transfers firm Currencies Direct had done so.
RippleNet is being used increasingly by legacy money transfer firms and banks (including central banks in Asia, the Middle East and big high street names in Europe) as a safe and low-cost cross-border remittance alternative. This may be as much a survival strategy on their part as a mere business endeavour, as the blockchain technology upon which RippleNet is based is essentially a decentralised digital ledger that has the potential to wholly eliminate banks, which have traditionally been necessary to verify and complete transactions, from the money transfers process, radically slashing costs as a result.
Most of our existing financial systems run on a centralised infrastructure, which has the disadvantage of making hacking an ever-present danger. But with the decentralised, distributed ledger that is blockchain, data simply can’t be tampered with: the blockchain ledger robustly protects the authenticity of all the transactions, so that companies using it get access to far greater security and control for their users.
And, while conventional cross-border payments frequently take days to complete, Ripple’s blockchain tech can complete them within seconds. Understandably, fintech innovators like InstaReM are keen to get in on the act, providing cheaper, safer and faster cross-border transactions for all their users wishing to transfer money internationally.
In June this year, InstaReM (which set up originally in Australia in 2015) launched operations in Europe, opening a new headquarters in London, and now provides cross-border payments services to over 55 countries (and counting) and has created competitive remittance corridors from Australia to India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and, more recently, Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain. It also has remittance hubs in the US and India and boasts a user base of 3.21 billion people across the world.
Commenting on the new strategic partnership with Ripple, InstaReM’s CEO Prajit Nanu said:
“We are pleased with this new partnership with Ripple which will see RippleNet members utilizing InstaReM’s unique payments mesh we have developed in Southeast Asia to further streamline payment processes.”
On behalf of Ripple, the company’s Head of Business Development, Patrick Griffin, added:
“We are ready to work with InstaReM to solve the global payments problem. In any situations, it’s imperative that we connect the world’s financial institutions into a payments system that works for customers, not against them.”
A recent money transfer comparison report found that InstaReM has achieved savings of 98% on domestic transfers rates for it clients.
If you’ve enjoyed reading about Ripple, you may like another of our articles featuring the company here.
