How the company was created
It all started with a friend’s bachelor’s party. No, seriously. It was in Thailand. At least that’s the story told by Instarem’s website.
Let’s see. Prajit Nanu, a former global sales director for TMF Group, also Sales & Account Management at WNS was charged with booking a resort for that party in Phuket, Thailand. For that, he had to transfer money overseas and he found it was a nightmare. It was slow, expensive, he had to cut through a lot of red tapes. It just wasn’t worth it but it was unavoidable.
That experience made Mr. Nanu join forces with Michael Bermingham, a close collaborator. Also an expert in compliance in three different continents (Europe, Asia, and North America). They had a vision together. International payments should be painless. Quick, cheap, devoid of paperwork. And that’s how Instarem was born.
A successful global remittance service
The company now operates in the United Kingdon, the USA, Lithuania, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia through local offices but it does business in more than 50 countries scattered all around the planet. The company is thriving.
It was the winner of the Singapore Fintech Award Festival in 2017 and declared the Outstanding Digital Cross-Border Money Transfer Service at the ET Net FintTech Awards, 2017.
What’s the firm’s secret for such success? It’s blockchain technology. More specifically, it’s Ripple‘s blockchain technology, software platforms, and cryptocurrency (XRP) which are designed exactly to get rid of almost all the friction still prevalent in the settlement of international payments.
The interview
Mr. Nanu himself explained that in a recent interview. He explained how the market has two main problems to solve: cost and speed. His own focus is in attacking the speed problem first (making international payments as quick as domestic ones). Being part of the RippleNet helps InstaReMit to expand without actively looking for new partners in other countries because every new bank or remittance service that joins the RippleNet automatically becomes a new institution available for business.
When asked why he chose to partner up with Ripple he went back to the question of speed. Ripple’s services and platforms allow his company to solve that problem in a very safe and reliable way which is paramount in his priorities.
This technology allows banks in SouthEast Asia, for instance, to send money to, say, the UK and have the transaction completed in five minutes. It’s huge progress if you take into account that the very same payment, sent through the standard channels, needs at least 24 hours (but often it can be 48 to 72) to reach its destination.
He finished saying “All our success is based on how fast our payments can be”. In other words, all their success is to be Ripple’s strategic partner, more or less. That’s a lot to say.
It seems that every financial institution in the planet who’s giving Ripple a try is falling in love with it, because it really makes things a lot easier for the banks at the same time that it improves the experience for customers because it’s not only so much faster but also so much cheaper.
Ripple has more than 200 strategic partners as we write this, and a new one is announced every week on average.
Image courtesy of PixaBay.
Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.