Banco Santander S.A. (Santander Group) (BME:SAN), the world’s 16th-largest banking institution and financial services company based in Madrid, has officially introduced PagoFX, its international payments application for UK customers.
Last month, Santander had revealed that it was in the final stages of developing its cross-border payments platform, which is going to compete with solutions offered by Fintech unicorn TransferWise.
Established as a standalone firm and business, PagoFX will allow UK’s residents to quickly transfer funds abroad using their mobile devices. Customers must have a debit card issued by a UK bank, in order to access the international payments app.
At present, cross-border transactions can be performed in a select few currencies from the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Sweden, the Czech Republic, the Eurozone area, and the US.
PagoFX says it aims to add support for new currencies and payment options in the future.
PagoFX’s management noted that it will allow customers to use its money transfer service without having to pay any fees for the next two months, due to the challenges people are facing following the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. However, there’s a limit of £3000 per transaction.
For any amount over £3000, the Fintech firm will be charging a 0.7-0.8% transaction fee.
The PagoFX payments app is accessible to everyone, regardless of the users’ banking service provider. The app will be introduced in several other European nations this year, the company confirmed. It added that the app will be launched in 20 different markets within the next four years.
PagoFX is the open-market version of Banco Santander’s cross-border funds transfer platform , One Pay FX, which was created with the help of American Fintech Ripple.
Santander’s management said that PagoFX was inspired or motivated by the success of One Pay FX. However, the bank clarified that PagoFX doesn’t use Ripple’s technology.
PagoFX is operated as an independent Fintech firm. There are over 50 professionals on the firm’s payroll. They’re based in business offices located in Brussels, Madrid, London and Brussels.
PagoFX has managed to recruit professionals who have previously worked at Amazon, PayPal and Intuit.
