Spanish banking giant Banco Santander has announced its plans to debut distributed ledger technology (DLT) for international payments for its retail customers in Q1 2018.

Blockchain startup Ripple is the technology provider for the project. Santander first revealed its plans to introduce blockchain technology for international payments in 2015, when it said that it will launch the new service in the form of an app.

The bank said at the time that the app was rolled out as a staff pilot. It has now revealed further details on the project in its 2017 Earnings Presentation in a slide titled 'Same day mobile international payments in 3 clicks and 40 seconds using distributed ledger technology', Ripple News reported.

According to the slide, Banco Santander plans to roll out the service in four countries simultaneously – Spain, Brasil, England and Poland. It believes that the technology would bring 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.

Finextra reported that the app has been tested with Apple Pay and enables users to confirm payments between £10 and £10,000 securely using Touch ID.