Santander Expanding Ripple-Powered Payments After Volume Triples

Spanish banking giant Santander plans to expand Ripple-powered global payment solution to Latin America, a Santander spokesperson told Cointelegraph on Aug. 19.

Citing rising transaction volume, Santander wants to expand Ripple’s xCurrent technology to a number of Latin American countries after first introducing the technology in Spain, Brazil, Poland and the United Kingdom in April 2018. 

U.S. payment corridor 

Specifically, the bank intends to enable zero-fee transactions from unspecified Latin American countries to the United States via a service included in banking apps called One Pay FX. To date, only customers in the U.K. and Spain can send money to the U.S. through One Pay FX. 

Based on Ripple’s xCurrent technology, One Pay FX is independent from XRP and does not need the digital currency to work, the Santander spokesperson explained to Cointelegraph. 

They added:

“Santander has always used xCurrent for One Pay FX, which does not need XRP to work.”

Future plans

Santander’s One Pay FX has seen its transaction volumes triple from January 2019 to June, the spokesperson confirmed to Cointelegraph.

But while Santander has not revealed when it expects to start rolling out the technology to Latin America, the bank reportedly plans to bring One Pay FX solution to the U.S. to enable American customers to send money abroad.

Apart from One Pay FX, Santander is also developing another international payment service dubbed Pago FX, which will be available for global non-Santander clients.

Recently, an executive at the U.K. pension and welfare agency cited Santander’s One Pay FX solution as one of the examples of successful blockchain applications that can potentially disrupt the payments industry.