todaysgazette.com
The need for Ripple (XRP) blockchain in easing the pain of migrants in Southeast Asian countries of the world has been discussed at one of the events organized by Ripple Lab Inc. to review the necessity and use of remittance technology across the globe.
At the latest Ripple Regionals: Asia Pacific 2019 event in Bangkok, the Chief Strategy Office at Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), Paul Arriyavat, disclosed that migrant workers in Southeast Asia go through pain in sending about $68 billion fund home.
The Siam Commercial Bank representative averred that in spite of the inconveniences, migrant seems not to have choice: “Banking penetration is so low. People use cash. It’s convenient, it’s cheap. As a bank, we cannot reach 70 percent of the population. Even though people in Southeast Asia are very advanced smartphone users, when it’s time to pay, they don’t use their phones,” Arriyavat stated.
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However, Paul Arriyavat, who doubles has the Vice President of Disruptive Technology Office, affirmed that Siam Bank, afterward, opted for the next step to partner a blockchain service provider that makes remittance almost instantaneous and affordable.
“We invested in Ripple. We commercialized their technologies. They became our co-partners in solving these pain points I just mentioned,” Arriyvat explained further. “We started with Thai migrant workers living in Japan and helped them send money home through 30,000 ATMs.”
Thomas Kiong, the Senior Managing Director of Group Treasury Sales and FX at CIMB, who also featured at the event as a speaker, said there are lots of migrants in Thailand and the remittance industry is rapidly growing with increase in demand for seamless remittance corridor.
While the Commerce International Merchant Bankers (CIMB) with headquarter in Bangkok had previously partnered Western Union to ease the pain of customers in sending money home, Kiong noted that “the economics were very much tilted in their favor. We did 80 percent of the work but only got 20 percent of the reward.”
The CIMB representative added that the services are quite expensive, inconvenient and take longer duration (5 days), thus sometimes make money redundant for the receiver.
Ripple aired that Southeast Asia reputation continues to grow beautifully with a framework of payments innovation today.