Ripple, the distributed financial ledger solution for the mainstream banking industry has witnessed an implementation of its technology for remittance between Thailand and Japan. The new payment channel was recently set up by two of its partners, SBI Remit and Siam Commercial Bank.

Cryptocurrencies are known to offer cheaper remittance options, thanks to their universal nature and the absence of multiple layers of fees otherwise associated with the banking system. This very feature has attracted many banking institutions to explore the use of blockchain technology in their operations. Ripple, the blockchain based financial platform has so far managed to meet the blockchain requirements of some of the leading banks.

The new Ripple-based remittance service established by SBI Remit and Siam Commercial Bank is expected to help over 45,000 Thailand nationals residing in Japan. The service will drastically cut down the time required by them to successfully transfer the money bank home.

According to Ripple’s blog post, the total remittance between Japan and Thailand is around $250 million per year and growing. And, the conventional money transfer takes about two days with a transaction fee of anywhere between 5%-7%. The SBI Remit and Siam Commercial Bank’s blockchain based remittance service is the first of its kind in the commercial sector that uses Ripple protocol.

The post also quotes the Chief Strategy Officer at Siam Commercial Bank, Dr. Arak Sutivong saying,

“We are proud to be the first bank in Asia to use Ripple’s leading blockchain network solution to power real-time payments for our customers, whose families oftentimes depend on the availability of these funds for basic needs – time is of the essence to them.”

Along the same lines, the representative of SBI Remit, Nobuo Ando said,

“It is our duty to continuously search for superior technological solutions to deliver ever improved remittance services for our customers. In this case, Ripple was impressive in concept and turned out to be more so in practice. Furthermore, we can expect to have more favorable foreign exchange opportunities as Ripple’s network expands. For this, we welcome more institutions to join and help us offer competitive remittance services over conventional methods to our valued customers.”

For Siam Commercial Bank, this is just the start as the banking institution has aimed to expand the remittance offering to include other countries in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

Ref: Ripple Blog | Image: NewsBTC