Ripple has announced that Xendpay, a rather unique UK-based international money transfer firm, has joined RippleNet in order to open up “new corridors” to Bangladesh, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia, as well as to enable “real-time payment rails to Thailand.”
According to Ripple’s blog post, not only does Xendpay offer “some of the most competitive rates on cross-border money transfers” but also “gives customers the option to waive fees with its Pay What You Want service.” This feature means that you can “change the transfer fee to what you think is fair when making your money transfer.”
Bhavin Vaghela, Xendpay’s Head of Product Innovation, says:
Most of our customers are migrants who are sending money back home. This money is vital to support their families: to pay rent or mortgage, electricity bills, medical fees and education costs. Being an online service allows us to reduce our overheads and pass the savings on to these clients, for whom every penny counts.
Ripple says that Xendpay is “popular in countries with established and growing migrant communities, including the U.K. and Europe, as well as Canada, South Africa and India.”
This is what Ripple has to say about Xendpay’s “Pay What You Want” feature:
What makes Xendpay truly unique is the company’s Pay What You Want feature that allows customers to waive fees on transfers totaling around $2,500 over a calendar year. This ensures that the full extent of a customer’s hard work is appreciated by their families. The Pay What You Want feature also extends to businesses, who can waive fees on transfers totaling around $5,000 per calendar year.
Vaghela explains why this feature is so attractive to Xendpay’s client base:
“Our suggested fees start at GBP3.50, which is already low for a cross-border payment. Though it may not seem like much, when you translate that into a currency like Vietnamese Dong, it’s a significant amount of money. Our customers can choose to pay our suggested fee or change it to one they feel is fair.
“I think of our fees as similar to providing a tip. If you feel like you’ve been treated well, received a good rate and enjoyed the experience, you might pay the recommended rate. We’ve even had clients pay us more.”
Until it joined RippleNet, Xendpay found that sending anything other than USD to new countries a difficult task since “dealing in smaller currencies required direct partnerships with local banks and the set-up and maintenance of complex API arrangements for each one.”
Ripple’s global payment network makes this task much easier:
Previously we had to create a whole business case for each partner. RippleNet reduces that complication and friction. There’s a built-in trust factor, which allows us to get to market quicker. We were unable to offer currencies like Malaysian Ringgit or Bangladeshi Taka before. Now that it’s easier to connect with local partners, we can provide our clients with more local currencies and, therefore, see new growth in those corridors.
And even in those cases where Xendpay “did have an established local partner,” cross-border payments took days, rather than occur in real-time (as it is possible with Ripple’s xCurrent product):
When we sent Thai Baht, it took 3 to 4 days for the payment to be processed. Thanks to RippleNet, a customer in Germany can log onto our platform at 3AM on a Sunday morning and the money will be in their beneficiary’s bank account in Thailand within an hour. More than 90 percent of our recent payments to Thailand over RippleNet have been delivered within 10 minutes.
Featured Image Courtesy of Xendpay Ltd
