Ripple, the enterprise blockchain solution for global payments, today announced a partnership with Mobile Money, a Malaysian mobile wallet company. Through RippleNet, Ripple’s global payments network, Mobile Money has connected to bKash, Bangladesh’s largest provider of mobile financial services (MFS) which serves over 45 million users. The partnership will power seamless wallet-to-wallet payments to serve the remittance corridor between Malaysia and Bangladesh.
bKash and MobileMoney will gain access to a wide range of RippleNet’s features, including wallet-to-wallet transactions. Mutual Trust Bank (MTB) will work as the local banking partner in Bangladesh to perform the remittance settlement under the purview of Bangladesh Bank and ensure a seamless payout experience.
Bangladesh has the third-largest remittance flows in South Asia, and the eleventh largest worldwide, with Malaysia ranking as one of the top five sources of remittances for Bangladesh. Through this partnership, Mobile Money is also anticipating an increase in its user base of Bangladeshi workers by 20% as it enables them to better serve their user base.
”We are constantly exploring innovative ways to give simple solutions to our customers. bKash is happy to have partnered with Ripple in collaboration with Mutual Trust Bank of Bangladesh to deliver a cost-effective, fast, transparent and reliable remittance sending experience to more than 10 million non-resident Bangladeshis all over the world. This partnership will bring great convenience to both the recipients and senders, and contribute further to our national economy by encouraging inward foreign remittance flow through legal channels,” said Kamal Quadir, CEO of bKash.
“Our focus has always been on providing simple, cost-effective and convenient e-payment solutions to our customers. More than ever, the pandemic has demonstrated that there is a strong need for remittance solutions that enable people to transfer money anytime and anywhere. Our partnership with Ripple makes us one of the first few e-wallet companies to offer such digital remittance solutions to Bangladeshi workers, and we’re confident that it will enable us to stay ahead of the competition while expanding our user base,” said Lee Eng Sia, Founder of Mobile Money.
Syed Mahbubur Rahman, Managing Director & CEO of Mutual Trust Bank added, “We look forward to enabling wallet-to-wallet remittances from Malaysia to Bangladesh in real-time by partnering with bKash and Ripple. Last year, Bangladesh remittances reached an all-time high of 18.2 billion U.S. dollars with the majority of these remittances coming from Malaysia, Middle Eastern countries and the U.S.”
“Ripple is keen to bring greater connectivity and convenience for the Bangladeshi population, and provide them with a more streamlined, frictionless cross-border payment experience,” said Navin Gupta, Managing Director of South Asia and MENA. “As Ripple is bolstering our presence in South Asia, we are excited to contribute to the infrastructure of the region to transform the way cross-border payments are executed.”
RippleNet leverages distributed ledger technology to deliver financial solutions – from bi-directional messaging, settlement, liquidity management and lines of credit – to a global network of partners.