Public blockchain platform Zilliqa has announced its partnership with Xfers, a Singapore-based fintech startup, to explore the use of payment solutions powered by distributed ledger technology for over 500,000 users in Southeast Asia.

Founded in 2014, Xfers is the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)-approved Widely Accepted Stored Value Facility (WA SVF). It boasts an extensive portfolio of clients in the fintech space including Southeast Asian peer-to-peer lending platforms Tunaikita and Julo as well as Payfazz, an agent-based financial platform in Indonesia.

Xfers currently offers open and interoperable application programming interfaces (APIs) and software development kits (SDKs) to its existing enterprise partners, in order to ensure that they can enter new markets with greater ease while complying with local regulations. It has processed over US$260 million across Singapore and Indonesia in 2018 alone.

Under the partnership, Xfers will leverage Zilliqa’s recently launched smart contract functionalities to drive greater efficiencies in cost, transparency, and security for users onboarding its payment platform.

Building the architecture of Xfers’ payment infrastructure on Zilliqa’s smart contracts layer will bring about new innovations to Xfers’ suite of enterprise solutions, which include support for payments, disbursements, regulatory compliance, a built-in digital wallet, and more, the release said.

“By partnering with Zilliqa, we hope to provide a cutting-edge solution that grants equal opportunities and cost-saving solutions for digital businesses looking to set-up in the region. As we enter the next phase of growth for financial innovation, only the most robust technological solutions will enable us to fully embrace the digital economy of the future,” Tianwei Liu, CEO and Co-founder of Xfers, said.

Zilliqa is an enterprise-grade blockchain platform renowned for use of sharding as on-chain solution to preserve decentralisation and enable greater scalability. To date, its blockchain is able to process 2,828 transactions per second.

Earlier this month, Zilliqa enabled smart contracts with a view to transforming existing business processes and driving efficiencies.

“One of the core ideological tenets spurred on by the decentralised finance movement is the promise of increased efficiencies and a trusted digital economy. Years on, blockchain has shown how it can solve some of the existing challenges in legacy financial infrastructure systems while delivering on these promises,” Zilliqa President Amrit Kumar said.

“We are excited to embark on this strategic partnership with Xfers as we enable greater usability, security, and scalability to a new and far-reaching use case in today’s financial services space”.