Spanish Banking Giant Banco Santander Announces Ripple-based International Payment Service in 4 Countries

Banco Santander has recently announced the launch of an international payment service using the blockchain technology. This makes Banco Santander as the first banking giant to make use of the revolutionary blockchain technology to facilitate instant and low-cost fund transfers across the globe. Currently, the service has been launched across four countries - Spain, Brazil, UK and Poland as the bank would consider expanding it to other countries in the coming months.

The bank calls this service as ‘Santander One Pay FX’ and is powered by Ripple’s xCurrent blockchain solution. xCurrent is an enterprise software developed by the San Francisco-based FinTech giant powered by end-to-end tracking and facilitates same-day money transfer across the globe.

Ana Botín, Executive Chairman of Banco Santander, said: “Blockchain technology offers tremendous opportunities to improve the services we offer our customers, and the launch of Santander One Pay FX is the first of many potential applications”.

“One Pay FX uses blockchain-based technology to provide a fast, simple and secure way to transfer money internationally - offering value, transparency, and the trust and service customers expect from a bank like Santander.”

She further added: “Transfers to Europe can be made on the same day and we are aiming to deliver instant transfers across several markets by the summer.”

The Spanish banking giant has been working on the development of this service for over two years now. Ana Botín was prompted to work on this project after she saw her son using a rival service and making quick money transfers across the globe. The bank says that it plans to add more services in the coming months thereby making it significantly faster than any other international payment service available today.

The bank further says that the new service will provide customers different payment options as per the market. For e.g customers from Spain can send U.S Dollars to the USA or Pound to Britain. Biotin said: “From today, customers in the UK can use One Pay to transfer money across Europe and to the US. In Spain, customers can transfer to UK and US, while customers in Brazil and Poland can transfer to the UK.”

Santander has been investing in the Ripple technology since 2015 through its venture capital arm InnoVentures. Till now, the banking giant is said to have poured over $200 million in the blockchain startup.