“This spring, if no one beats us to it, we will be the first large retail bank to carry out cross-border payments at scale with blockchain technology.”

Santander has announced that they will be launching an international money transfer app in partnership with Ripple; the third most popular cryptocurrency , due to take place in the next few months. Nathan Bostock, the banks CEO, said;They have named Ripple as their partner, as they specialise in cross-border payments through its blockchain-based xCurrent and RippleNet products. In 2015 and 2016, Santander invested in Ripple, as well as trialing an international payments app using Ripple technology with its staff in 2016. The CEO of the bank, Ana Botin, made their customers aware of this upcoming launch in the 2017 results presentation, which took place at the end of January, and told everyone that the app would go live in Spain, Brazil, UK and Poland. When the trial app took place, it allowed transfers to be settled in just 24 hours, compared to the traditional cross border payment providers that took days to complete. Ripple’s technology also allows people to see how much their transfer will cost. This is also a lot less than traditional transfers, because it cuts out the middle man, unlike traditional international transfer systems. Santander have chosen to pair with Ripple for their latest venture, which is the third most popular cryptocurrency by market capital. The cryptocurrency was founded in 2012, in San Francisco. The company’s aim was to bring blockchain and cryptocurrency solutions to the global payments and transfer market, making it perfect to team with Santander. It should be noted though that Santander is not the only company working with Ripple. MoneyGram and Western Union are trialling xRapid; which is its liquidity solution. UAE Exchange is also using its international transfer platform, xCurrent.