- Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) has developed an app in cooperation with Ripple, which was officially launched yesterday.
- The SCB EASY app will enable fast and cheap transfers for over 16 million private customers in Thailand.
Especially in Asia, the number of migrant workers who earn money in another country and then send it home to their families at disproportionately high costs is very high. According to a recent survey, more than 86% of the population in China uses mobile payment applications and 67% in Thailand to send money. To address this need more quickly and cost-effectively for its customers, Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) has launched a new app that uses Ripple technology.
SCB launches Ripple-based app for real-time payments
Siam Commercial Bank is the oldest bank in Thailand and has a private customer base of more than 16 million people who have so far been subject to excessive transfer fees and long transaction times. As Crypto News Flash reported, Ripple has been working with SCB for several months to develop a payment app called SCB Easy. Arthit Sriumporn, the SVP of Commercial Banking, explains:
It is so difficult to send and receive money today. People must physically go to a bank branch, fill out long and complicated forms and wait for payments to be received—with no transparency. With our service, their loved ones from abroad can transfer payment and receive money immediately.
In a demo version of the SCB-Easy app, the bank demonstrated at the Swell conference last year how money arrived at the recipient after only 40 seconds. Yesterday the app was officially released for the bank’s 16 million private customers. The development time took several months due to regulatory issues and the local legal situation.
SCB also plans to expand its cross-border payment traffic to 12 countries as well as the US dollar, euro, pound sterling and Singapore dollar. These countries include the United Kingdom, the USA, Singapore, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Austria, Belgium and Portugal.
SCB and Ripple continue to work on offering cross-border EMVCo-QR payments. QR payments are a popular payment method, especially in South East Asia, but have so far been used mainly in local areas. The initiative is therefore primarily intended to support the local population, who are faced with high costs and long transaction times for traditional remittance services. In addition, tourists in Thailand willd also benefit:
Imagine you are a tourist coming to Thailand, and you can use your home country mobile application to scan for payment and eliminate the need to exchange for local currency. You can use your mobile app, scan the QR payment and receive goods right away.
Sriumporn describes that SCB, in cooperation with Ripple, can significantly change and improve people’s lives. SCB handles more than 60,000 transactions between private individuals every month and a total transaction volume of more than $400 million.
XRP price reacts to positive news
XRP’s price responded well to this news, rising 8.65% to a price of $0.2152 in the last 24 hours. With a market capitalization of $9.41 billion, XRP is the third largest cryptocurrency.
