Ripple Partner Xendpay Launching Multiple Corridors to Expand in Southeast Asia

UK-based cross-border payment service Xendpay is expanding in Southeast Asia using Ripple’s technology to settle payments in minutes instead of days.

The company’s partnership with Ripple will allow the London-headquartered firm to launch new payment corridors, via RippleNet, to Bangladesh, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, according to a recent announcement. The initiative will also aim to open real-time payment channels to Thailand.

Says Bhavin Vaghela, Xendpay’s head of product innovation,

“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.”

Xendpay joined RippleNet, a decentralized network for making international money transfers, earlier this year. So far, it is utilizing Ripple’s payment messaging system xCurrent and has not revealed whether it plans to use Ripple’s XRP-powered xRapid.

Xendpay is widely used in areas with growing communities of migrant workers such as the UK, Canada and South Africa. Students looking to pay tuition fees and receive money to cover living expenses as well as online startups that need to buy and sell products and services from abroad have been using Xendpay.

Vaghela notes that Xendpay has a flexible fee structure.

“Our suggested fees start at GBP 3.50, 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.”

However, Xendpay’s “Pay What You Want” option only allows clients to waive fees on transactions totaling $2,500 per year and up to $5,000 each year for businesses.

Xendpay’s management is using RippleNet because it allows the company to make remittance payments in smaller currencies such as the Malaysian Ringgit or the Bangladeshi Taka without having to set up complex API arrangements with local banks. 

Vaghela adds,

“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.” 

With Ripple’s real-time settlement, Vaghela says it no longer takes three to four business days to send Thai Bahts.

Vaghela says,

“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.”