Banco Santander to Extend the Coverage of Ripple in 19 Countries

Banco Santander, a multinational Spanish bank, successfully launched Ripple payments in 19 countries across the globe. The bank is hoping to extend the services to more nations.

In 2018 Santander, in collaboration with Ripple, released One Pay FX, a blockchain-driven solution for foreign payments. The solution has been put in place in four countries – Spain, Poland, Brazil, and the UK.

Ed Metzger, chief technology officer of One Pay FX, said the project was aimed at resolving a pressing need for international transfers. A lengthy waiting period and confusion existed at the time. He said:

“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. 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.”

One Pay FX already has a Ripple-backed Messaging app for payments.

Banco Santander is currently the world’s 16th largest commercial bank with an annual turnover of more than €49.2 billion (about $55.6 billion).
One Pay FX
As Banco Santander also announced in a separate development that it had taken steps to extend the regional scope of One Pay FX.

Innovations such as these occur in the online money transfer industry, driving competition in a variety of key markets.

One Pay FX uses Ripple’s payment messaging system to transfer money between currencies, in comparison to Ripple’s native token XRP. The software product, a rival of Swift’s international financial network, helps banks settle fiat-to-fiat transactions in real-time by using messaging to explain and check the specifics of the transaction.