According to multiple South Korean news outlets the Woori Bank of South Korea tested overseas remittance through Ripple and the tests were successful. The news outlets also mention that the first time that the Digital Strategy Department of the Woori Bank performed this test was back in late January and that the results have now been concluded as successful.

Furthermore, the bank claims that it wants to focus on the practical training of its foreign exchange and IT departments so that they are used to the new Ripple system.

Successful Remittance Tests

What remittance basically means is overseas fund transfers. Therefore, banks are considering using Ripple’s services in order to send money overseas way faster than SWIFT can. In case you didn’t know SWIFT is being used for overseas transfers by all major banks, but the main issue with SWIFT is that transfers take a couple of days before they are completed.

However, this doesn’t mean that Ripple is going to replace SWIFT anytime soon. The reason we are saying this is because SWIFT is already used by all the world’s biggest banks and Ripple’s needs to spread its network more before it can compete against SWIFT.

Japanese Banks Tested Ripple

We should also mention that Woori Bank is not the only one to test Ripple. The Tokyo based SBI Group is saying that 37 Japanese banks have successfully tested Ripple’s network. Here are some other banks that have also given Ripple a try: Siam Commercial Bank of Thailand and Shinhan Bank of South Korea.

Here is what an official from the Woori Bank of South Korea had to say about these latest Ripple tests: “The issue of overseas remittance fees is a matter for discussions, but it is much quicker and cheaper than existing remittance. In the future, the customer will choose the most advantageous overseas remittance method”.