Santander has claimed that its upcoming blockchain phone app One Pay FX can speed up international payments between multiple countries, in a process that will require “3 clicks and 40 seconds” to complete.
It is set to be initially available in the UK, Brazil, Poland, and Spain with plans to expand to more countries in the near future.
Santander’s blockchain application development
One of the world’s largest banks, Santander’s UK business sector and San Fransisco-based Ripple have been developing the international payment app since 2016. Back in January, the company released a presentation with details of a phone app and the use of blockchain and distributed ledger technology.
Ripple, a cryptocurrency built for enterprise and banking, aims to provide fast global payments, low transaction fees and other beneficial factors like blockchain security. It also looks to implement more bespoke functionality for the industry, which isn’t necessarily required by other coins.
xCurrent is the financial institution software solution currently provided by Ripple, offering end-to-end tracking and bi-directional messaging. Ripple claims many other features and qualities such as scalability which make it well suited for the banking industry.
Future banking built on blockchain
Although Santander is at the forefront of the technology, plenty of others are already working towards similar solutions using blockchain. With PKO Polski recently creating a partnership with Coinfirm and Toronto-Dominion (TD) bank applying for blockchain patents, there is a growing transition of organizations moving towards crypto-space.
A consortium in Japan is currently looking to bring in some 60 banks which are responsible for the majority of the countries financial assets (80%) to the blockchain age using Ripple’s technology.
Current bank transfers take two to four days to clear due to checks for fraudulent behavior, but blockchain looks to speed up the process while maintaining security. The use of blockchain also presents the opportunity to implement artificial intelligence which can now work with encrypted data as well as monitor and analyze transaction patterns.
