- Banco Santander’s One Pay FX system will be expanded to a range of different countries – and its work with Ripple has also been enhanced.
- The new arrangement means that One Pay FX will be available in almost 20 extra countries, and transactions will be speedier thanks to Ripple.
- “I made a payment recently from an account I have in Spain to one in the UK and received text alerts about the transaction from both accounts within seconds of one another,” explains a senior figure at One Pay FX.
Leading international financial services firm Banco Santander has revealed plans to grow its One Pay FX online money transfer system with the help of a blockchain-based liquidity provider.
One Pay FX will build on its existing work alongside Ripple, which provides banks with on-demand liquidity to improve payment times and make them close to instant.
One Pay FX, which is a mobile app, now offers transactions that settle in some cases on the same day – though in other cases, it can take longer.
According to Ed Metzger, who is the chief technical officer of One Pay FX, the move has been made as part of efforts to increase transparency for the end user.
“Customers told us that they never knew how much money was going to get to their recipient because it was never clear what the exchange rate would be or what fees would be charged,” he said.
“On top of that, they had no transparency about when the payment was going to get there. They just knew it would take 3-5 days. This type of feedback is standard across the industry. No one was solving the problem.”
However, he later went on to emphasise the key aspect of Ripple’s appeal, which is that it speeds up international money transfer transactions and allows them to happen instantly in some cases.
“Ripple also helps us address the speed issue of international transactions,” he said.
“Some payments on One Pay FX now happen instantly. I made a payment recently from an account I have in Spain to one in the UK and received text alerts about the transaction from both accounts within seconds of one another,” he added.
Ripple is gaining significant ground in the online money transfer space, with many firms using its services.
Its current list of clients includes famous money transfer firms such as MoneyGram as well as credit card providers such as American Express.
As well as being a provider of liquidity and settlement services, Ripple is also a cryptocurrency in its own right.
In a separate development, meanwhile, Banco Santander also announced that it had taken steps to expand One Pay FX’s geographical reach.
The app can now be used in almost 20 additional countries.
Developments like these are happening across the online money transfer sector, fuelling innovation in a range of key markets.
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