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SBI Remit Co., Ltd will soon be offering a cheaper remittance option for those who want to send money from Japan to the Philippines. This is made possible with Ripple’s first On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service, which uses the crypto XRP for transactions.
SBI Remit Co., Ltd, the largest money transfer provider in Japan, has teamed up with the Philippines’ mobile payments service Coins.ph, as well as crypto exchange platform SBI VC Trade to upgrade the remittance experience for Japan to Philippines money transfers, according to a Ripple blog post.
The team will be harnessing Ripple’s innovative On-Demand Liquidity service which will enable them to offer more affordable yet faster remittances for their customers. This is the first implementation of Ripple’s ODL service in Japan, which could signal greater adoption for crypto-enabled services in the region.
Companies will be able to keep the cost remittances down since pre-funding is no longer necessary as the service uses the XRP crypto. This frees up capital, which companies can use to accelerate their expansion efforts or improve their products and services.
SBI Remit’s new offering will be targeting the remittance needs of Filipinos working in Japan. At around 10.5 percent, Japan has one of the highest remittance costs in the world and is almost twice the average cost (5.92 percent) of all the member countries of the G8.
SBI’s decision to choose the Philippines as the first destination for its On-Demand Liquidity-powered remittance service is also potentially very lucrative. The Philippines is the third-largest destination for remittances from Japan with an average annual volume of $1.8 billion.
“We see tremendous potential in leveraging blockchain technology to transform not only the way payment transactions are made but in how we manage our business by unlocking trapped capital,” SBI Remit Representative Director Nobuo Ando said.
The company appears to be planning to expand the service to other remittance destinations as well. “The launch of ODL in Japan is just the start, and we look forward to continuing to push into the next frontier of financial innovation, beyond real-time payments in just the Philippines, but to other parts of the region as well,” Ando added.
