Ripple Labs’ payments platform is expanding into Southeast Asia as the crypto firm partners with a prominent Japanese financial services titan.
According to a new press release, Ripple Labs is collaborating with SBI Remit, the remittance arm of SBI Group to provide international remittances to the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia using the digital asset XRP.
The partnership would allow citizens in those nations to receive remittances in their native currencies.
As stated by SBI,
“[In] a joint venture between SBI Holdings and Ripple, we will start providing international remittance services using the crypto asset XRP to bank accounts in the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia [starting] this month…
SBI Remit sends a customer’s remittance request, and we send XRP in real time in response to that request. By partnering with Tranglo, a leading company in the fund transfer industry, as an overseas remittance destination partner, customers will be able to receive remittances in local legal currencies.”
According to SBI, which oversees $138 billion in assets, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia were chosen because the rate at which they receive remittances is high and only accelerating.
“We will expand the range of international remittance services using this XRP to bank accounts in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia. In these countries, the share of remittances to bank accounts is high, and we expect that the introduction will accelerate in the future…
By using XRP as a bridge currency, you can send money quickly and at low cost. In addition, it has excellent scalability, such as being able to easily send money to Ripple’s partners around the world, and we believe that it will lead to strengthening our competitiveness in the international money transfer business.”
XRP is trading for $0.494 at time of writing, a fractional decrease during the last 24 hours.
