Ripple - GCash & AliPay's 2nd Degree Connections

[mars75]

***this is speculation***

In the wake of AliPay's announcement of launching a cross-border remittance service powered by blockchain technology, a closer inspection of the partnerships reveals several layers of Ripple associates. The cross-border remittance services into the Philippines will be offered by in a collaboration between GCash, AliPay, and Standard Chartered.

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The service between GCash and AlipayHK will provide round-the-clock, real-time money transfers between Hong Kong and the Philippines at a competitive exchange rate and will have lower transaction fees. The fees will be waived during the initial three month trial period of the service, the companies said in the press release. To transfer money, customers would make a few taps through AlipayHK and the money will arrive into the GCash user’s account within seconds.  According to the companies, blockchain technology allowed them to improve the speed and efficiency for remittance services. Once a user submits a remittance application, all network participants — which include AlipayHK, GCash and Standard Chartered Bank, which is the first bank supporting the initiative — are notified.

With further details on Standard Chartered's involvement,

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Standard Chartered is providing the underlying banking infrastructure to support this pivotal initiative. Lisa Robins, Global Head, Transaction Banking at Standard Chartered, noted in the press release that “remittances are a lifeblood of many communities in the Philippines,” with the country the third-largest remittance market with $33 billion of inflows in 2017.

https://www.pymnts.com/news/cross-border-commerce/2018/alipay-gcash-blockchain-cross-border-remittance-philippines/

Standard Chartered is currently a RippleNet adopter, primarily using it for cross-border payments between India and Singapore. The bank has also broadcasted it's plans on extending it's utilization of RippleNet to five other countries/pairs this year.

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Standard Chartered is to extend its use of the Ripple network for cross-border payments to five more pairs of countries over the coming year. The bank went public with its use of Ripple to unlock the $15 billion trade corridor between India and Singapore in November.....In a passage on the bank's investment in innovation initiatives, Winters states: "We are using blockchain technology to streamline cross-border payments as part of the first live, real-time payments corridor between Singapore and India that we initiated in 2017. We will expand this capability to five more pairs of countries in 2018."

https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/32048/standard-chartered-to-extend-use-of-ripplenet-to-more-countries

Standard Chartered acting as the settlement bank by offering it's infrastructure to both AliPay and GCash for remittance services, falls into Winters statement of expanding it's capabilities to other currency pairs with the Philippine Piso (PHP), the Hong Kong Dollar (HKD), and the Chinese Yaun/renminbi (CNY) being the suspects. GCash in itself also has an abundance of service and associate overlaps with Ripple. Currently GCash and it's services such as GCASH REMIT into the Philippines is consisted of SoftBank Payments and Globe Telecom.

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GCASH REMIT is the Remittance Service provided by SoftBank Payment Service Corp. with the partnership with GXI, a subsidiary of Globe Telecom.

https://www.gcash.jp/?lg=e

SBI Holdings' business relationship with SoftBank has been under speculation since SBI's involvement with Ripple but Globe Telecom can reveal other intentions of GCash. GCash is not the only notable subsidiary of Globe Telecom, Mynt is another subsidiary of Globe Telecom's financial technology arm that includes Ayala Corp and Ant Financial(AliPay/Alibaba).

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We are a FinTech startup partnership between Globe Telecom, the Ayala Corporation, and Ant Financial. Our five key services include payments, remittance, loans, business solutions and platforms.

https://www.mynt.xyz/about-us/

The significance of Mynt pertains to an announcement this past March. Globe Telecom with Ayala Corp and Ant Financial thru Mynt, partnered with MoneyGram to provide remittance services into the Philippines to smartphone users for their GCash mobile wallets.

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Globe Telecom's financial technology arm said Wednesday it has partnered with global remittance firm MoneyGram to allow families of Filipinos abroad to receive remittances on their smartphones. Mynt, the fintech subsidiary of Globe, Ayala Corp and Ant Financial, said the service will be available through its GCash mobile wallet.

http://news.abs-cbn.com/business/tech-biz/03/08/18/globe-fintech-arm-moneygram-launch-smartphone-based-remittance-service

MoneyGram is well known in the Ripple community for it's involvement in trialing xRapid for a pilot which utilizes the XRP Ledger (XRP) for cross-border payments.

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MoneyGram will pilot the use of XRP, the native digital asset of the XRP Ledger, in payment flows through xRapid, Ripple's solution for on-demand liquidity. XRP remains the most efficient digital asset for payments with transaction fees at just fractions of a penny, compared to Bitcoin fees of about $30 per transaction. Similarly, the average transaction time for XRP is 2-3 seconds with other top digital assets ranging from 15 minutes to an hour.

http://ir.moneygram.com/news-releases/news-release-details/ripple-and-moneygram-partner-modernize-payments

As of now, we publicly know that Mynt (Globe Telecom, Ayala Corp, and Ant Financial) partnered with MoneyGram to improve remittance services into the Philippines for GCash mobile wallet users. MoneyGram states that it's intention on piloting XRP this past January was because the digital asset offered negligible transaction fees and because the average transaction time involving XRP is 2-3 seconds. Interesting enough, this new remittance service provided by both Alibaba and GCash involves HKD and PHP. And the transaction time publicly shared took only 3 seconds...

After Alibaba's failure to acquire MoneyGram this past January (same time as MoneyGram's announcement of it's xRapid pilot), Alibaba was adamant that they would still collaborate with MoneyGram to develop remittance and digital payments to several countries including the Philippines........

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Ant Financial and MoneyGram said they will now explore and develop initiatives to work together in remittance and digital payments in China, India, the Philippines and other Asian markets, as well as in the United States. This cooperation will take the form of commercial agreements, one of the sources said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-moneygram-intl-m-a-ant-financial/u-s-blocks-moneygram-sale-to-chinas-ant-financial-on-national-security-concerns-idUSKBN1ER1R7

Very interesting times indeed! Time will only tell

EDIT:

(more speculation in regards to GCash & Western Union)

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Western Union and G-Xchange Inc. have enabled consumers to receive Western Union international or domestic money transfers into their registered GCash wallets 24/7—providing consumers with convenient access at their finger-tips. Following an agreement between the two companies, Western Union’s global cross-border platform was integrated with G-Xchange, Inc’s world class e-commerce platform to enable GCash users to direct money transfers into their GCash wallets from almost anywhere around the world and from within the Philippines.

GXI description,

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G-Xchange Inc. is an operating company under Globe Fintech Innovations Inc. (Mynt). It offers GCash, an internationally acclaimed micropayment service that transforms the mobile phone into a virtual wallet for secure, fast and convenient payments and money transfers.

https://businessmirror.com.ph/western-union-expands-digital-distribution-through-gcash-mobile-wallets/

Edited June 25, 2018 by mars75

[Guest]

Thanks for the research, Aaron. Great as always. 

[Guest]

It all connects beautifully. thank you. 

[WhentheBoat_ComesIn]

@mars75Thanks for taking the time to put this together, joining dots, for the benefit of the community.

[ripplegigolo]

FUD on Twitter threads .... XRP Chat is the place to go. Thank you mars75!!

[crazyazz]

Very interesting indeed

[Zedy44]

[Mcripple]

Stupid question - I apologize. 

could Ant Financial use XRP as a settlement currency?

[JoelQuinn]

Thanks for putting this together. I always appreciate your contributions and fantastic research.

Interesting times indeed, indeed.  

[Mrsrippley]

@mars75you don't post often but when you do the research and effort is to be credited and definitely taken note of. I always enjoy your posts and the connections that you make, you are a credit to the forum. Another noteworthy link which I found out today was that Gcash and American Express work together and I only found this out today on this forum. Thanks @mars75 great info once again.

[GiddyUp]

Wow, thanks @mars75 you are the best!!!

[Rutski]

Always at your best, thank you for this!

[bayarea510]

Informative post. Thanks for the research.

[xrpmoonboiz]

always connect the dots...

[ButchMcDick]

Mars75.. amen