Azimo, the digital money transfer service, partnered with Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), Thailand’s oldest bank, to launch an instant cross-border payment service from Europe to Thailand via Ripple’s global payment network, RippleNet.
The solution aims at tackling the challenges of costly and unreliable global payments, according to an announcement. They state that it will take less than a minute to complete remittances from Europe to Thailand via their platform.
Instant Payments via RippleNet
Historically, European-Thailand remittances often take over an entire business day to settle. By contrast, Azimo can almost instantly clear Sterling Pound and Euros into Thailand’s Baht.
Michael Kent, co-founder and executive chairman of Azimo, highlighted that this type of instant payment solution is used in many countries. He added:
“Thailand recently launched their instant payment network, and this partnership with the largest bank in the country allows us to get the time to settle payments down from around 24 hours to an average of 22 seconds. [It’s] faster to send money to Thailand than to someone else in Europe.”
Thailand’s expensive remittances services
According to World Bank figures, Thailand is one of the world’s most important remittance destinations, receiving almost $6.7 billion a year. Yet sending and receiving money is also one of the most expensive countries.
The partnership comes shortly after Azimo launched the on-demand liquidity service offered by RippleNet as part of its expansion into the Philippines. In the coming months the service also intends to launch in other countries.
Cryptolydian reported on January 18 that Ripple and Bitkub, a Thailand-based cryptocurrency exchange, announced a partnership under which the exchange Ripple will be able to cross-border XRP transactions.
Bitkub’s CEO, Topp Jirayut said:
“Ripple is one of the key players for banks to realize significant benefits. Ripple is to establish an institutional, cross-border payment with XRP, an open source for access and participation in the public sector of XRP cash flow – a stand-alone digital currency used to facilitate transactions on the Ripple network.”
