Spanish banking giant Banco Santander has launched a new blockchain-based international payments service, Santander One Pay FX.
The bank had previously announced its plans to debut distributed ledger technology (DLT) for international payments for its retail customers in Q1 2018.
The new service will enable customers to complete international transfers on the same day itself in many cases or by the next day. Customers would also be able to view the exact amount that will be received in the destination currency before they make the transfer.
Santander One Pay FX uses Ripple’s settlement technology xCurrent and is available to retail customers in Spain, UK, Brazil and Poland. With its launch, Santander said that it will become the first bank to roll out a blockchain-based international payments service to retail customers in multiple countries simultaneously.
“Ripple’s products, including xCurrent, help financial institutions across the globe enhance their customer experience by making the global movement of money more fluid,” said Marcus Treacher, Ripple’s SVP of customer success. “With One Pay FX, Santander customers in can now send payments across borders in a fast and simple way.”
The bank will add more features in the coming months, including offering instant international payments in several markets before the summer, making it significantly faster than existing international payment services. It also plans to roll out the service across more countries in the coming months.
“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,” Ana Botín, Executive Chairman of Banco Santander, said. “Transfers to Europe can be made on the same day and we are aiming to deliver instant transfers across several markets by the summer.”
