Novatti taps Ripple ODL for remittance payments


The current global payments infrastructure does not meet today’s business or consumer demands.

Cross-border payments require businesses to hold pre-funded accounts in destination currencies — a costly and slow endeavor that ties up resources — leaving remitters with limited options.

RippleNet and its network of global financial institutions are changing the status quo. RippleNet enables hundreds of financial institutions across more than 55 countries to streamline global payments, expand into new markets and provide the best customer payments experience today.

Seizing on this opportunity, Novatti Group joins Ripple’s global payment network tapping RippleNet’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service — leveraging the digital asset XRP for instant, cross-border payments. Announced recently as part of a deal originally signed in December 2020, the digital banking and fintech company that specializes in delivering unique payment solutions is deploying RippleNet to make moving money faster, cheaper and more reliable for their customers.

The partnership initially focuses on remittances between Australia and the Philippines through the country’s largest non-bank, Filipino-owned remittance service provider, iRemit. The Philippines is the third largest remittance receiving country in Asia after India and China, with Filipinos abroad sending home $33.19 billion USD in 2020 despite the pandemic. But the time and expense required to send remittances into the Southeast Asian country diminishes the impact of these funds, which are often the main source of disposable income for Filipino families.

Live now, Novatti expects to process several thousand transactions a month through RippleNet and is planning to quickly scale the service to more fintech customers and other countries in Southeast Asia.

ODL allows Novatti and its fintech customers to deliver on this promise because it enables instant cross-border payments without the need for pre-funding. Before ODL, remittance providers would need to hold pre-funded accounts on each side of a transaction in that country’s local currency.

Those accounts tie up capital all over the world, adding expense to every transaction. And even with these accounts to facilitate payments, transactions can still take days to fully settle without any visibility into the status of the payment.

Using XRP, a digital asset built for payments, ODL can instantly bridge currencies, eliminating the need for pre-funded accounts. This unlocks capital and reduces operational costs, savings that can be passed on to customers and put to use in more effective ways.