Santander, a multinational banking giant based in Spain, is reportedly opening up a special payment corridor that would enable customers in Latin America to send money directly to the US at no cost.
At the moment, only clients in Spain and the United Kingdom can use Ripple’s payment solution to transfer money across Europe and to the United States.
One Pay FX
The bank will use One Pay app for this purpose. It is a service driven by xCurrent, Ripple’s financial solution that enables banks to instantly settle international payments.
According to Ripple, the high speed of settlement is disrupting the existing solutions on the market, such as SWIFT with which a payment settles in a few days on average. And its worth noting the solution does not use XRP, an independent crypto-asset that is used to facilitate transactions on the Ripple Network.
The bank, however, didn’t reveal the number of Latin American nations it is planning to serve. Currently, Santander connects Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil.
According to Cedric Menager, CEO of One Pay FX, this product is gaining traction. His statement reads:
“Customers who were not doing international transfers are now using the service, customers who were using international transfer are now doing it more, and customers who had gone to use fintech competition have come back because of the One Pay offering.”
The development comes barely days after a Reddit user accused Santander of blocking its UK clients from depositing their money to US-based crypto exchange Coinbase. He went on to say the bank’s rep had advised him over the phone to move banks if he wished to continue using Coinbase.
However, Santander confirmed it has not severed ties with Coinbase. “We do not block payments to any legitimate company, however in certain circumstances, we will refer payments for additional security checks, where we believe there may be a higher risk of fraud, ” said a Santander U.K. spokesperson.
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