- Banking giant to create new system for cross-border South American payments
- Firm will work alongside several others as part of the development
- “Customers who had gone to use fintech competition have come back because of the One Pay offering”, says partner firm’s CEO
Multinational banking chain Santander has revealed that it will be using an innovative form of blockchain technology to enable better online money transfer in Latin America.
The banking chain, which is headquartered in Spain but which is in operation around the world, is understood to be using the technology to develop a way for customers in Latin America to send cash for free to the United States.
Ripple is a faster payments service which beats many international money transfer types in terms of speed.
Currently, Santander does offer Ripple – but it can only be used by customers based in either Britain or its home nation of Spain.
Those customers are only able to use it to send within Europe and the US.
If the move transpires, it will be seen by many market watchers as a real boost for the Latin American regional economy.
Santander has not yet confirmed which South American countries will be able to accept the service. It is currently only in operation in four nations there.
The service will actually be provided by a firm called One Pay, which offers an app, and another partner called xCurrent.
Cedric Menager, who serves as CEO of One Pay, said that his firm’s solution could have transformative effects.
“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”, he argued.
To some, however, this move was unexpected due to question marks over Santander’s level of commitment to crypto.
A British crypto user claims that he was recently told by Santander that the firm has denied his request to make a deposit at Coinbase, which is a crypto exchange in the US.
“Just got off the phone with a Santander rep in the U.K. who informed me they will no longer be allowing their customers to deposit money to Coinbase”, the user wrote.
“After I put in a complaint their 'complaint department' confirmed to me that I should move to an alternative bank if I wish to make the payment”, they added.
In a sign that the newness of cryptocurrencies leads to sometimes disjointed or uncertain positions from major corporations, Santander later said this was not wholly accurate.
“We do not block payments to any legitimate company, however in certain circumstances, we will refer payments for additional security checks, where we believe there may be a higher risk of fraud”, the company clarified.
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