UK-based online remittance service provider Azimo has entered into a partnership with Thailand’s Siam Commercial bank to deliver instant payments for its customers from Europe to SCB bank accounts in Thailand, the media reported.
With regard to the partnership with Siam Commercial, Azimo co-founder and executive chairman Michael Kent told TechCrunch, “More and more countries are going to instant payment. Thailand recently launched theirs, and this partnership with the largest bank in the country allows us to get the time to settle payments down from around 24 hours to an average of 22 seconds. It’s faster to send money to Thailand than to someone else in the UK.”
The new service, launched by Azimo in partnership with Siam Commercial, leverages RippleNet’s network, the global payment network that harnesses blockchain to let users track funds, delivery time, and status.
Micheal Kent added, “RippeNet provides a standardised protocol for the messaging that is much more accurate and hi-fidelity than what people have tended to use, which is SWIFT. It means we could do the integration faster and have more confidence that its enterprise-grade from the time we go live.”
Azimo’s platform is currently used by more than a million customers, who can send money from 25 countries to more than 200 countries.
In the month of February, Azimo announced that it has secured around €20 million in funding from the European Investment Bank – the lending division of the EU. Azimo further revealed that the fund would be used for research and development and for scaling up its platform.