Ripple adoption gets another boost after Santander bank launches new payment corridor

Spanish banking giant Banco Santander has announced its One Pay FX, a digital banking app powered by Ripple for cross-border payments, has added a new corridor to its blockchain powered service.

Following an update of the app last week, the iOS app supports instant payments between the UK and Poland. While the service was available in the UK and Poland prior to the announcement, money could not be sent between the two countries. 

Taking to Twitter, Marcus Treacher, senior vice president of customer success at Ripple, highlighted the launch, saying it was “great to see this important payment corridor go live”.

With the updated application, Santander customers can now transfer as much as 10,000 euros per day to 19 European countries–and the US–with no transaction fees.

Santander launched the One Pay FX in April 2018, making it available to retail customers in the UK, Spain, Poland and Brazil. This was a pretty big scalp for Ripple–Banco Santander is Europe’s third-largest bank managing some $1.4 trillion in assets. It was also the first bank to roll out a blockchain-based international payments service to customers in several countries at once.

“One Pay FX uses blockchain-based technology to provide a fast, simple and secure way to transfer money internationally – offering value, transparency, and the trust and service customers expect from a bank like Santander,” said Ana Botín, executive chairman of Banco Santander in the April statement.

While Santander is helping to expand access to Ripple’s payment app, the same can’t be said for XRP, the currency Ripple also created. In March 2019, the bank backtracked after reports suggested the One Pay FX app was using XRP to manage payments.

It was a “misunderstanding” the bank later confessed. Santander giveth and Santander taketh away.