The National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) joined Ripple’s network of blockchain payments seeking faster cross-border transfers of money. On Thursday, the bank announced that it has launched a new remittance service called NBK Direct Remit, which allows for “immediate” blockchain payments using Ripple technology.
The service starts with a remittance corridor only to Jordan, but is expected to expand in the near future to more countries, the bank said in a statement. NBK has a presence in China, Geneva, London, Paris, New York and Singapore and in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
NBK charges 1 Kuwaiti dinars ($3.29) per Jordan transaction when funds are sent to its local branch. For customers who use other banks, the transaction will be charged 5 KWD ($16.47). The default transaction limit is 2.000 KWD ($6.586).
Marcus Treacher, SVP of Ripple’s customer success, said his company has begun to move live payments on behalf of NBK customers across its blockchain network.
NBK joins the growing number of financial institutions worldwide in its blockchain payment services partnership with Ripple. These include most recently the Malaysian CIMB banking group, South Korea ‘s Coinone crypto exchange, USA bank giant PNC, UAE Exchange, among others.
The worldwide remittance market, including the Middle East region, is growing. According to recent World Bank figures, migrants exchanged $ 53 billion for the Middle East and North African markets in 2017 alone.
