[2016-08-18] ToI: Overseas remittances' costs to reduce with new system

[polynesia]

Overseas remittances' costs to reduce with new system

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Overseas-remittances-costs-to-reduce-with-new-system/articleshow/53767362.cms

In the world of international banking, small may not be beautiful for customers. And no where is it more ugly than in the world of cross-border payments.Smaller remmittances of $50 or 100 Saudi riyals incur a heftier inter-bank transaction fee than larger remmittances of $50,000 or $1 million from a corporate account. Which would indirectly mean that the cab driver or kindergarten teacher or thousands of blue collar workers overseas would pay as much as 8%25% in transaction fee on every dollar heshe sends to India, versus a 5%-7% charge that an IT major like Cognizant or NetApp would have to pay.

Enter Ripple's disruptive technology of distributed ledger for cross-border payments, which might prove to be an equaliser of sorts in the world of remmittances, as it brings down transaction costs sizeably. Ripple, which has offices in San Francisco, New York, London, Luxembourg and Sydney, said a number of banks in India have shown interest in the technology given its ease of usage over blockchain.