In 2018, TransferGo partnered with Ripple on a program to help Indian migrant workers send money home to their families faster than ever. Today, the company can transfer funds from a sender in Europe to a recipient bank account in India in just a few minutes.
According to TransferGo’s Co-Founder and CEO Daumantas Dvilinskas, this impressive technical achievement has a real impact on the lives of customers.
“After launching our Ripple corridor to India, we were able to pay out remittances in minutes,” explained Dvilinskas. “Our U.K. customers are second-and third-generation Indians sending money to family and friends in India to help them pay utility bills and cover education costs. TransferGo enables those recipients to get that buying power as quickly as possible. Ripple gives us a competitive edge in India, which is the largest global cross-border remittance market, and today we’re moving more than a couple of million pounds per year.”
High-Speed Word-Of-Mouth Growth
When it launched in 2012, TransferGo’s mission was to enable same-and next-day international transfers for Europe’s broad base of migrant workers. The company’s biggest challenge was the time and expense of constantly integrating with new banking partners every time it opened new settlement corridors.
“Before RippleNet, we had a more traditional way of building our infrastructure,” recalled Dvilinskas. “We would link up directly with our bank partners but each one had a different technology stack. Every integration was bespoke, which took up a lot of tech resources and was time-consuming. With RippleNet we saw a scalable opportunity to have one integration for multiple partners, so we don’t have to redo it each time.”
Plugging into RippleNet’s global network of banks and financial institutions has reduced integration costs and the company is passing those savings onto its customers.
“We’re helping people save up to 90% on traditional fees for cross-border transfers,” noted Dvilinskas. “That makes a real difference to their lives. Our customers know they get a fair price from us and refer us to their friends and families because they trust us.”
Moving Money From Fee to Free
Knowing that many customers were sensitive about fees, TransferGo recently launched a free service for people who didn’t need instant payments.
“TransferGo Free is all about following customer needs,” explained Dvilinskas. “Sometimes you need to send money asap but other times you can wait and choose a zero-fee transaction at mid-market rates. But for most customers, the real delight of our service is the instant nature of the transfer and they are happy to pay for the peace of mind of knowing that their families will have the money in seven minutes.”
Dvilinskas acknowledges that by 2020, even a few minutes will be too slow, which is why TransferGo is looking to use RippleNet’s On-Demand Liquidity with XRP as an alternative to pre-funding. At the same time, the company is expanding its real-time operations into new markets in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa with RippleNet.
“RippleNet is facilitating new relationships and helping us to expand to new geographies,” concludes Dvilinskas. “We share a vision of a world where cross-border payments are frictionless and accessible. Ripple will continue to be a vital strategic partner in our mission to become a global real-time payments company.”
