Today, you can send money to anyone in the Philippines over the Stellar network–for “free”.
In your favorite Stellar wallet you can create a payment to
[any phone number in the Philippines]*coins.asia with the amount of Filipino pesos you want to send that person. Or you can use Tempo to send Euros. In either case they will receive the funds in 3-5 seconds. The recipient can cash out at any of Coins.ph‘s 22,000 locations.
This will make a huge difference in the lives of millions of people–overseas Filipino workers around the world sent $26.92 billion back to the Philippines in 2015, making the Philippines the third largest remittance market in the world.
Before we share the really exciting news about the other organizations coming on board, I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate this step forward in achieving our mission: enabling a worldwide financial network that anyone can use.
Now…
Please welcome Coins.ph, Flutterwave, ICICI, and Tempo Money Transfer to the Stellar ecosystem and community.
These organizations coming onboard means that their customers will be able to move money from France to Nigeria to Kenya to India in real-time and securely.
We’re happy they made the decision to integrate with Stellar because of efficiency and cost, and excited to see the Stellar universe expand exponentially.
Raj Chowdhury, Head of the Blockchain initiative, ICICI Bank said,
“With blockchain technology we are able to conduct business seamlessly with parties with which we had no prior relationships. Blockchain platforms such as Stellar.org are providing us with an automated technology solution to establish trust without the need for an intermediary. This technology is enabling us to conduct business a lot quicker, cheaper with lower error rates and lower vulnerability to cyber threats.
It is helping us eradicate the need for post transaction settlements which are cumbersome and expensive. We envision blockchain technology playing a key role in banking in the years ahead.”
What Does this Mean?
Why this is powerful is that, by integrating with Stellar, all of these organizations will immediately gain access to all the other institutions on the Stellar network, enabling their customers to send and receive low-cost and instant money transfers.
And likewise any new financial institution that joins the Stellar network will also be able to transact directly with Coins.ph, ICICI, Flutterwave and Tempo–accessing their large and diverse customer bases.
These partnerships are helping real people’s lives—here we have some of the first, on-the-ground use cases of “blockchain” improving the world we live in. We’re proud of that.
In 2017 and beyond, we will keep adding partners to the network, continuing our mission of making a massive impact in how money moves around the world.
this post first appeared on the Stellar blog
