Banco Santander Head of Innovation Ed Metzgar took to the stage at Ripple’s Swell 2018 event, which is being held this week in San Francisco, and announced: “We want to tell you about our journey with Ripple, and how we’ve used the technology to improve our customers’ lives.”

He was referring to Banco Santander’s One Pay FX, launched in April as the world’s first mobile application for cross-border payments powered by RippleNet.

Customers’ new expectations

Santander’s retail customers are looking for an experience that’s as personal, fast and reliable as other internet services, Metzger observed.

“We believe that financial services are moving to a world of open platforms where companies collaborate to deliver excellent customer service for their customers, and that’s at the core of what we’re doing with One Pay FX,” he added.

He then gave a practical use case for the bank’s new blockchain platform: “One of our customers was in Italy on holiday and parked in the wrong place. He needed to pay a fine and didn’t have his bank card. He was able to use the app to pay the fine immediately, and stop his car from being towed away.”

A new level of transparency, certainty and speed

After piloting Ripple’s blockchain across many different markets, Santander realised it was immediately able to provide customers with a new level of transparency, certainty and speed.

“It’s four or five clicks to do something that would have taken an awful, awful long time in the past.”

Banco Santander is planning to continue to roll-out OnePay FX in more countries over the coming months.