SendFriend Remittance Receive $1.7 Million In Funding From Barclays, Mastercard Foundation And Ripple
Philippines’ remittance firm SendFriend has raised $1.7 million in investment funding from MasterCard Foundation, Ripple, Barclays, MIT Media Lab, 8 Decimal Capital and Techstars among other investors. Since SendFriend is an alumnus of the accelerator program the company signed an agreement with Ripple to use their XRP cryptocurrency to transfer funder across the border.
SendFriend remittance to ease the transfer of money
The use of XRP will enable SendFriend to circumvent the banking system by converting USD to XRP and then to PHP instantly thus allowing Filipino workers who are working abroad to transfer money from U.S. dollars into Philippine peso.
The MIT founded firm is planning to launch in New Jersey and open their first remittance corridor between the Philippines and the United States. The company will use the Ripples xRapid product to settle cross border transactions.
The investment funding
David Lighton, SendFriend’s Co-founder and CEO stated that the investment fund raised will assist in the hiring of new staff and also focusing on community engagement as well as marketing.
Speaking on backing the funding, Yuan Ruan, the Founder of 8 Decimal Capital indicated that SendFriend had created a robust partnership in its supply chain in the development of a foundation that will significantly minimize friction in the system. He added that although the space is highly competitive they believe in SendFriend's success.
Easing friction in the banking system
SendFriend indicates that in 2018 remittance services users spent close to 45 billion in fees that often take up to three days when sending cash home. The company indicated that the current banking system is costly, slow and inefficient compared to the XRP token that they intend to leverage.
In the investment funding announcement, the company implied that their fees will be 65% lower than the industry's average for cross border transactions. Since they will use blockchain technology the company will replace the fees and frictions associated with banking systems.
The Philippines’ House of Representatives approved a bill last week that seeks to give Filipino workers working abroad a 10% to 50% discount on remittance fee relative to the amount one is sending. The Philippines is the leading Asian market for remittance and in 2018 the country’s diaspora population sent close to $34 million.