Kuwait Finance House has announced the launch of its instant cross-border remittance service using Ripple’s blockchain technology. According to a company tweet, the zero fess “Instant International Transfer” service is now available. Customers will be able to make remittance transactions in Saudi Riyal (SAR) to beneficiaries at Al Rajhi Bank.
The announcement marks major progress following an extensive trial period.
In October, Ripple’s global head of infrastructure innovation Dilip Rao indicated that the Chairman of Kuwait Finance House said that the company was working with Ripple to test a service that will go head-to-head with Swift, the standard for processing messages and instructions to settle global payments and financial transactions among various counterparties.
One of the largest Islamic banks in the world, Kuwait Finance House (KFH) was the Arab nation’s first bank to join RippleNet, an enterprise network for international remittance payments.
So far, KFH has not revealed whether it’s using xCurrent, which is Ripple’s enterprise software solution that allow banks to settle cross-border payments instantly with end-to-end tracking, or xRapid, which is Ripple’s on-demand liquidity offering that uses XRP, to lower costs while enabling real-time, cross-border payments.
KFH simply indicates that its plans are global in scope, and that it plans to expand the service beyond the Saudi Riyal.
Ripple continues to make strides in the Middle East.
In December, the National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) launched NBK Direct Remit, a new service for easy cross-border remittances that utilizes Ripple’s xCurrent payment solution.
The 24/7 service marked the first time a banking institution in Kuwait used xCurrent for cross-border transfers, enabling customers to send payments to Jordan.