The NBK (National Bank of Kuwait) is among the largest financial institutions in the country that are privately held. It recently launched NBK Direct Remit, which is to be used for making cross-border live payments. NBK Direct Remit will utilize the enterprise blockchain technology of Ripple in order to offer: “a frictionless remittance experience and fast cross-border money transfer solutions.”
This is a service that will launch with just a Jordan remittance. However, it should expand to various countries in the future. NBK currently has a physical presence in Geneva, China, New York, Singapore, London and Paris. Regional presence is seen in Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE and Lebanon.
The National Bank of Kuwait will charge 1 Kuwaiti dinar (KWD) (around $3.29) per transaction when transferring money to Jordan, to an NBK branch. If choosing another bank, the fee is 5 KWD. A default transaction limit is 2,000 KWD.
According to Ripple’s Senior Vice President of Customer Success, Marcus Treacher:
The National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) is an important partner in the region, and we’re excited that they have begun moving live payments across our blockchain network on behalf of their customers. We will continue to work with NBK to connect them to more RippleNet partners so their customers can make quicker, cheaper payments to anywhere in the world.
The NBK was established in the year 1952. It is among the largest financial institutions in the country, based on assets. In 2017 it was reported that it sold over $86.3 billion in assets. It is expected that in 2018 the amounts were much higher but reports were not yet released. The expected climb is due to consumers embracing mobile banking apps and even crypto options.
In November we saw Ripple expanding the network with CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, a large Malaysian lending giant, which is going to integrate the XCurrent product by Ripple. This is a software solution that is meant to expedite cross-border payments. In the exact same month, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc declared it will use Ripple in order to handle cross-border payments to Brazil, in a partnership done with Banco Bradesco.
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