Banco Santander has set a Q1 2018 launch date for the introduction of same day mobile international payments for personal customers using Ripple's distributed ledger technology.

Santander has been piloting the technology for 18 months with bank staffers. The app has been tested with Apple Pay for payments of between £10 and £10,000 using Touch ID for secure sign-in.



Plans for the live roll out were revealed in the bank's 2017 earning presentation under a slide headed, 'Same day mobile international payments in 3 clicks and 40 seconds using distributed ledger technology'.



Santander plans to introduce the service in four countries simultaneously and promises full transparency on fees and FX upfront.



"We expect to be one of the first global banks to roll out distributed ledger technology based payments for individuals," the bank told analysts.



In November, the UK arm of the bank also announced plans to work with American Express to use Ripple's tech for blockchain-enabled cross-border business-to-business payments.